Chap. I.] LEOPARDS. 143 



I cut in the bark of the trees. On leaving the plain, 

 I availed myself of a fine wide game track which lay in 

 my direction, and had gone, perhaps half a mile from the 

 camp, when I was startled by a slight rustling in the 

 nilloo^ to my right, and in another instant, by the spring 

 of a magnificent leopard which, in a bound of fidl eight 

 feet in height over the lower brushwood, lighted at my 

 feet within eighteen inches of the spot whereon I stood, 

 and lay in a crouching position, his fieiy gleaming eyes 

 fixed on me. 



" The predicament was not a pleasant one. I had 

 no weapon of defence, and with one spring or blow of 

 liis paw the beast could have annihilated me. To move 

 I knew would only encom^age his attack. It occurred 

 to me at the moment that I had heard of the power 

 of man's eye over wild animals, and accordingly I fixed 

 my gaze as intently, as the agitation of such a moment 

 enabled me, on his eyes : we stared at each other for 

 some seconds, when, to my inexpressible joy, the beast 

 turned and bounded down the straight open path before 

 me." " This scene occurred just at that period of the 

 morning when the grazing animals retired from the open 

 patena to the cool shade of the forest : doubtless, the 

 leopard had taken my approach for that of a deer, or 

 some such animal. And if his spring had been at a 

 quadruped instead of a biped, his distance was so well 

 measured, that it must have landed him on the neck of a 

 deer, an elk, or a bufftdo ; as it was, one pace more would 

 have done for me. A bear would not have let his victim 

 off so easily." 



It is said, but I never have been able personally to verify 

 the fact, that the Ceylon leopard exliibits a peculiarity in 

 being unable entirely to retract its claws within their 

 sheaths. 



Of the lesser feline species the number and variety 



' A species of one of the suffi-uticose I in the mountain ranges of Ceylon. 

 Acantfuieece which gi'ows abundantly | See ante, p. 90 n. 



