ii6 THE RIFLE AND HOUND IN CEYLON, chap, ix, 



All these annoyances form great drawbacks to the 

 enjoyment of the low-country sports ; although they 

 are afterwards forgotten, and the bright moments of 

 the sport are all that are looked back to, they are 

 great discomforts at the time. When the day is over, 

 and the man, fatigued by intense heat and a hard 

 day's work, feels himself refreshed by a bath and a 

 change of clothes, the incurable itching of a thousand 

 tick-bites destroys all his pleasure ; he finds himself 

 streaming with blood from leech-bites, and for the 

 time he feels disgusted with the country. First-rate 

 sport can alone compensate for all these annoyances. 



There is a portion of the Park country known as 

 Dimboold6n6. In this part there is a cave formed by 

 a large overhanging rock, which is a much cooler resi- 

 dence than the tent. Here we accordingly bivouacked, 

 the cave being sufficiently large to contain the horses 

 in addition to ourselves and servants. After a delight- 

 fully cool night, free from mosquitoes, we made a day 

 of it, but we walked from sunrise till 5 P.M. without 

 seeing a sign of an elephant. At length, from the top 

 of a high hill on the very confines of the Park country, 

 we looked across a deep valley, and with the assist- 

 ance of the telescope we plainly distinguished a large 

 single elephant feeding on the grassy side of an opposite 

 mountain. To cross the deep valley that separated 

 us, and to ascend the mountain, would have taken 

 several hours, and at this time of the day it was 



