38 THE RIFLE AND HOUND IN CEYLON, chap. hi. 



of large game. Like most novices, however, I was 

 guilty of one great fault. I despised the game, and 

 gave no heed to the many tales of danger and hair- 

 breadth escapes which attended the pursuit of wild 

 animals. This carelessness on my part arose from 

 my first debut having been extremely lucky ; most 

 shots had told well, and the animal had been killed 

 with such apparent ease that I had learnt to place an 

 implicit reliance in the rifle. The real fact was that 

 I was like many others ; I had slaughtered a number 

 of animals without understanding their habits, and I 

 was perfectly ignorant of the sport. This is now 

 many years ago, and it was then my first visit to the 

 island. Some places that were good spots for shoot- 

 ing in those days have since that time been much 

 disturbed, and are now no longer attractive to my eyes. 

 One of these places is Minneria Lake. 



I was on a shooting trip accompanied by my 

 brother, whom [will designate as B. We had passed 

 a toilsome day in pushing and dragging our ponies 

 for twenty miles along a narrow path through thick 

 jungle, which half-a-dozen natives in advance were 

 opening before us with bill-hooks. This had at one 

 time been a good path, but was then overgrown. It 

 is now an acknowledged bridle road. 



At 4 P.M., and eighty miles from Kandy, we 

 emerged from the jungle, and the view of Minneria 

 Lake burst upon us, fully repaying us for our day's 



