no THE RIFLE AND HOUND IN CEYLON, chap. vi. 



They hunt like the leopard ; noiselessly stalking till 

 within ten paces of their game, they let the broad 

 arrow fly. At this distance who could miss ? Should 

 the game be simply wounded, it is quite enough ; they 

 never lose him, but hunt him up, like hounds upon a 

 blood track. 



Nevertheless, they are very bad shots with the bow 

 and arrow, and they never can improve while they re- 

 strict their practice to such short ranges. 



I have often tried them at a mark at sixty yards, 

 and, although a very bad hand with a bow myself, I have 

 invariably beaten them with their own weapons. These 

 bows are six feet long, made of a light supple wood, 

 and the strings are made of the fibrous bark of a tree 

 greased and twisted. The arrows are three feet long, 

 formed of the same wood as the bows. The blades 

 are themselves seven inches of this length, and are flat, 

 like the blade of a dinner-knife brought to a point. 

 Three short feathers from the peacock's wing are 

 roughly lashed to the other end of the arrow. 



The Veddah in person is extremely ugly ; short, 

 but sinewy, his long uncombed locks fall to his waist, 

 looking more like a horse's tail than human hair. He 

 despises money, but is thankful for a knife, a hatchet, 

 or a gaudy-coloured cloth, or brass pot for cooking. 



The women are horribly ugly and are almost en- 

 tirely naked. They have no matrimonial regulations, 

 and the children are squalid and miserable. Still these 



