HUNTING & SHOOTING IN CEYLON 



faithful henchman Meyyan made a dash for the boxes 

 of kitchen things, saved the precious " fire-boxes " and 

 put them in my clothes-box ; but I got so wet that my 

 teeth chattered with cold, and Garrick got out a whisky 

 flask, from which we both had a nip, which saved the 

 situation. After about an hour and a half of misery it 

 ceased, and we emerged from our apology for a tent, 

 setting to work to " lock the stable door," &c., by putting 

 up the tents, those for the men first, under which they 

 soon had fires going and were chattering away like 

 magpies. 



We then roughly erected our own, doing it practically 

 all ourselves to warm us up a bit, going into the jungle 

 with candles to cut the necessary poles and pegs, after 

 which we changed into dry clothes, spread a piece of the 

 " fly " on the ground and dozed till daybreak. 



Examining damages next morning, we found, of course, 

 our beds, blankets, and everything wet through, my watch 

 lying in a puddle under my pillow (luckily rubber air 

 pillows) was spoilt, but nothing whatever lost or irretriev- 

 ably ruined except the unfortunate cake, which caused us 

 a fresh burst of laughter. 



The men had sat on the bags of rice, and so that had 

 not suffered much, and our tinned things could not spoil, 

 whilst our tin boxes had kept our clothes dry. We wrung 

 our blankets and things out, had " early tea," up-stick and 

 away for our final camp, where there was a grand slab rock 

 which in a few hours so dried everything up that the whole 

 incident was forgotten, but it certainly formed one of the 

 most miserable nights I ever spent in the jungle. On a 

 pitch dark, wet night like that, elephants wander about 

 a good deal, and our Singhalese were very nervous, though 

 they were one and all jungle men, but I and Garrick at 



214 



