A Jungle Trip. 264 



He knew nothing of any place except the northern 

 portion of the Veddah country. This was his world ; 

 but his knowledge of it was extremely limited, as he 

 <*ould not undertake to guide us further than Oomanoo, 

 a Veddah village, which he described as three days' 

 journey from where we then stood. We made him 

 point out the direction in which it lay. This he did, 

 after looking for some moments at the sun ; and, upon 

 comparing the position with the compass, we were glad 

 to see it at south-south-east, being pretty close to the 

 course that we wished to steer. From Oomanoo, he 

 said, we could procure another Veddah to guide us still 

 farther; but he himself knew nothing more. 



Now this was all satisfactory enough so far, but I 

 had been completely wrong in my idea of the distance 

 from Doolana to the " Park." We now heard of three 

 days' journey to Oomanoo, which was certainly some- 

 where in the very centre of the Veddah country ; and 

 our quaint little guide had never even heard of the Bat- 

 ticaloa road. There was no doubt, therefore, that it 

 was a long way from Oomanoo, which village might 

 be any distance from us, as a Veddah's description of a 

 day's journey might vary from ten to thirty miles. 



I certainly looked forward to a short allowance of 

 food both for ourselves and coolies. We had been hur- 

 rying though the country at such a rate that we had 

 killed no deer ; we had, therefore, been living upon our 

 tins of preserved provisions, of which we had now only 

 four remaining. 



At the village of Monampitya there was no rice pro- 

 curable, as the natives lived entirely upon korrakan,* 



* A small seed, which they make into hard, uneatable cakes. 



