ON THE WEST COAST OF CEYLON 65 



amused us. The rifle had evidently been a single- 

 barrelled muzzle-loader, to which an ingenious native 

 had attached a Snider action. In this he used 

 Snider cartridges ; but as the bore seemed to me 

 to be rather more than '577, the bullets must have 

 taken the grooving very little, if at all. However, 

 as will be seen, he managed to kill something 

 with it. 



After a tedious drive, changing horses half-way, 

 we reached the place where the beaters were wait- 

 ing. Several of them, to my horror, carried old 

 muskets and came round begging us for bullets. I 

 gave one of them a 12 -bore one, which was much 

 too large for his gun ; but by cutting slices off it 

 he hammered it down on to a handful of powder. 



The OTound we were to beat consisted of some 

 tracts of high jungle adjoining the cocoa-nut planta- 

 tion. I was posted where a sort of path formed an 

 angle, and the other two guns went on. The path 

 was so narrow that it was obvious the rifle would 

 not be of much use, so I put buckshot cartridges in 

 my gun and leant the rifle against a tree. All was 

 silent. 



I w^onder has anybody ever described a curious 

 phenomenon which I have often in my young days 

 noticed when big-game shooting ? You stand waiting 

 for perhaps half an hour, till, suddenly changing the 

 direction of your glance, you see among the trees 

 the object of your search. So it was with me in 

 this case. I looked to my right, and there, looking 

 straight at me in the bushes, was a noble axis stag. 

 I could see him so distinctly that I could almost 

 count the points on his horns. I half raised my 

 gun — but how unnaturally still he stands. Am I 



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