HUNTING & SHOOTING IN CEYLON 



Up the old short cut to Summit Level occupied some fifteen 

 minutes or so, and it was " bellows to mend " by the time 

 we reached the top. But here the aspect of affairs improved 

 vastly, as hound after hound pricked his ears and listened 

 to the now palpable, though distant, baying of both the 

 missing hounds. It was still more than half a mile away, 

 and some 500 feet higher than where we already stood. It 

 would have been unwise to let the pack go as yet through 

 forest teeming with game, and in a country so broken. In 

 half the distance to the bay the hounds might lose, in some 

 deep hollow, or by some noisy stream, the sound they were 

 making for. Keeping the pack by whip and voice close at 

 my heels, we made our best pace along a patna and up 

 through a thick grassy ravine, down which tumbled a noisy 

 mountain stream. Here no sound of bay or tongue could 

 reach the pack, now pressing close behind me, eager to dash 

 forward at a moment's notice. Reaching a small plateau, 

 where the stream took a bend, we suddenly found ourselves 

 right up to the bay. The stag had unconsciously moved 

 down to meet us, and a noble spectacle he was as he stood 

 in the middle of a shallow pool on a bit of rough patna. 

 With his head low and his dark brown muzzle thrust 

 forward, he presented the personification of fearless rage 

 as he faced the two hounds. Every now and then, im- 

 patiently pounding the water with his fore-foot, he would 

 charge right up to the bank to drive off some more venture- 

 some hound, and occasionally he would dash out of the 

 pool on to the bank, and actually chase a hound into the 

 long grass. 



By this time the rest of the pack were round him, and 

 as one of the half-breds nipped his hock for a second, he 

 broke his bay, catching the dog a resounding kick as he 

 did so. Past us he rushed, heading down stream, along the 



