164 The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon. 



elk had taken. On he came bounding along the rough 

 side of the hill like a lion, followed by only two dogs- 

 Dan, a pointer (since killed by a leopard), and Cato, a 

 young dog who had never yet seen an elk. The re- 

 mainder of the pack had taken after a doe that had 

 crossed the scent, and they were now running in a 

 different direction. I now imagined that the elk had 

 gone down the ravine to the lower plains by some run 

 that might exist along the edge of the cliff, and accord- 

 ingly started off along a deer-path through the jungle, 

 to arrive at the lower plains by the shortest road that I 

 could make. 



Hardly had I run a hundred yards when I heard the 

 ringing of the bay and the deep voice of Smut, mingled 

 with the roar of the waterfall, to which I had been run- 

 ning parallel. Instantly changing my course, I was in 

 a few moments on the bank of the river just above the 

 fall. There stood the buck at bay in a large pool about 

 three feet deep, where the dogs could only advance by 

 swimming. Upon my jumping into the pool he broke 

 his bay, and, dashing through the dogs, appeared to 

 leap over the verge of the cataract, but in reality he 

 took to a deer-path which skirted the steep side of the . 

 wooded precipice. So steep was the inclination that I 

 could only follow on his track by clinging to the stems 

 of the trees. The roar of the waterfall, now only a few 

 feet on my right hand, completely overpowered the 

 voices of the dogs wherever they might be, and I care- 

 fully commenced a perilous descent by the side of the 

 fall, knowing that both dogs and elk must be some- 

 where before me. So stunning was the roar of the 

 water that a cannon might have been fired without 

 my hearing it. I was now one-third of the way down 



