4 THE IMAGE OF WAR 



whose brown head is about the only sober - coloured 

 part of him. When he moves he is one flash of 

 brilliant hues. So is the bee-eater. The golden 

 oriole is another beautiful and common bird, as are 

 the numerous barbets, parrakeets, and green pigeons. 

 The white paddy-bird, a kind of dwarf heron, gives a 

 relief everywhere to the masses of green, and at times 

 the sombre black-and-brown jungle-crow takes wing 

 from a thick clump of bushes, presenting in his flight 

 a singular resemblance to a dwarf cock - pheasant. 

 Wild animals there are none in these cultivated 

 districts, save the hare, but reptiles are well repre- 

 sented, the most uncommon ones to European eyes 

 being the huge cahragoya lizards. The edible iguana 

 {tallagoya) is more rare. 



So far, I seem to have carefully avoided the jungle 

 I sat down to write about. Now, let me repair my 

 error. The first place in which I ever came into close 

 contact therewith was Kandy, where we had in those 

 days a detachment. I was the junior of its officers, 

 and consequently the last for choice of quarters. 

 Those that were left me in the town itself being very 

 inferior, I turned my attention elsewhere, and dis- 

 covered, high up on a hill called the Western Eedoubt, 

 a little low house which had once been appropriated 

 as commissariat officers' quarters. The little place 

 fascinated me, and I easily obtained leave to occupy 

 it. I shall probably have occasion hereafter to de- 

 scribe it more in detail. Suffice it to say that no 

 house ever could have been more thoroughly in the 

 jungle. A shelf of the hill, planted as a garden, ran 

 some two yards in front of the house and along its 

 side, but behind came the jungle, and the only com- 

 munication with the outer world consisted of a couple 



