ON THE WEST COAST OF CEYLON. 89 



have often had my sleeves burnt red through a drill 

 coat when out shooting. 



Next morning we were up betimes, and after a 

 hasty " early tea " we found our host waiting for us 

 with a ramshackle dog-cart. He was one of those 

 Portugo-Dutch-Cingalese so common in the island, his 

 name Fernandez de Silva. He was very talkative 

 and a keen sportsman. He was very proud of his 

 " breech-loading rifle," which rather amused us. The 

 rifle had evidently been a single-barrelled muzzle- 

 loader, to which an ingenious native had attached a 

 Snider action. In this he used Snider cartridges, but 

 as the bore seemed to me to be rather more than -577, 

 the bullets must have taken the grooving very little. 

 However, as will be seen, he managed to kill some- 

 thing with it. 



After a tedious drive, changing horses half-way, 

 we reached the place where the beaters were waiting. 

 Several of them, to my horror, carried old muskets 

 and came round begging us for bullets. I gave one of 

 them a 12-bore one which was much too large for 

 his gun, but by cutting slices off it he hammered it 

 down on to a handful of powder. 



The ground we were to beat consisted of some 

 tracks of high jungle adjoining the cocoanut plantation. 

 I was posted where a sort of path formed an angle, 

 and the other two guns went on. The path was so 

 narrow that it was obvious the rifle would not be of 

 much use, so I put buckshot cartridges in my gun and 

 leant the rifle against a tree. All was silent. 



I wonder has anybody ever described a curious 



