CHAP. xil. A JUNG LP. TRir. 305 



forest. Unfortunately, the nights were not moonlight, 

 or we could have killed a deer, as they came out in 

 immense herds just at dusk. We luckily bagged a 

 good supply of snipe, upon which we dined, and wc 

 reserved our tins of meat for some more urgent 

 occasion. 



Nov. 26. — All vestiges of open country had lone, 

 ceased. We now rode for seventeen miles through 

 magnificent forest, containing the most stupendous 

 banian trees that I have ever beheld. The ebony 

 trees were also very numerous, and grew to an im- 

 mense size. This forest was perfectly open. There 

 was not a sign of either underwood or grass beneath 

 the trees, and no track was discernible beyond the 

 notches in the trees made at some former time by the 

 Veddah's axe. In one part of this forest a rocky 

 mountain appeared at some period to have burst into 

 fragments ; and for the distance of about a mile it 

 formed the apparent ruins of a city of giants. Rocks 

 as large as churches lay piled one upon the other, 

 forming long dark alleys and caves that would have 

 housed some hundreds of men. 



The effect was perfectly fairylike, as the faint 

 silver light of the sun, mellowed by the screen of tree- 

 tops, half-lighted up these silent caves. The giant 

 stems of the trees sprang like tall columns from the 

 foundations of the rocks that shadowed them with 

 their dense foliage. Two or three families of 

 Y 



