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CHAPTER I. 



STRUCTURE AXD FUXCTIOXS. 



During my residence at Kandy, I had twice tlie 

 oi)portunity of witnessing the operation on a grand 

 scale of capturing wild elephants, intended to be trained 

 for the public service in tlie estabhshment of the Civil 

 Engineer ; — and in the course of my frequent journeys 

 through the interior of the island, I succeeded in 

 collecting so many particulars relative to tlie habits of 

 these interesting animals in a state of natm-e, as have en- 

 abled me not only to add to the information previously 

 possessed, but to correct many fallacies popularly re- 

 ceived regarding their instincts and disposition. These 

 I am anxious to place on record before proceeding to 

 describe the scenes of which I was a spectator, dming 

 the progress of the elephant hunts in the district of the 

 Seven Corles, at wliicli I was present in 1846, and again 

 in 1847. 



With the exception of the narrow but densely inha- 

 bited belt of cultivated land, wliicli extends along the 

 seaborde of the island from Chilaw on the western 

 coast to Tangalle on the east, there is no part of Ceylon 

 in which elephants may not be said to abound ; even 

 close to the environs of tlie most populous locahties of 

 the interior. They frequent both the open plains and 

 tlie deep forests ; and their footsteps are to be seen 

 wherever food and shade, vegetation and water \ allure 



' M. Ad. Pictet has availpcl him- 

 self of the love of the elepliant for 

 water, to foimd on it a solution of the 

 long-contested question as to the 



etymolopv of the word "elephant,"' 

 — a term which, whilst it has passed 

 into almost every dialect of the 

 West, is scarcely to be traced iu 



