224 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



place, I recollect, in the summer of 187 . I shall 

 allude to it only briefly, because shortly after that 

 meeting I left Colombo, and hardly ever saw that 

 particular pack of hounds. They were foxhounds, and 

 the intention was that they should hunt the jackal. I 

 can't say who was the authority for the statement that 

 we should find plenty of jacks, but the fact is there 

 were practically none at all, and from a subsequent 

 experience of the spicy island, extending over half-a- 

 dozen years, I certainly wonder any one should have 

 thought there were. I never saw a jackal anywhere 

 in Ceylon, in the hills or the plains, north, south, east, 

 or west. I have been told they exist in the extreme 

 north, and the fact remains that the Colombo Hounds 

 once But I anticipate. As " bagmen " were after- 

 wards procured without difficulty, jackals must exist. 

 But they are far from being the common objects they 

 are in India, and in the neighbourhood of the town of 

 Colombo they must be few and far between, for I 

 hunted there regularly with harriers and never saw a 

 jackal. As I said before, there are no foxes in Ceylon. 



The hounds arrived in due course, all the ten 

 couple being in good health, and I may mention that, 

 excepting one which picked up some poison, the 

 Colombo Hunt never lost a hound. 



As soon as things were got into working order 

 they proceeded to draw for a jackal, but I believe they 

 only once found. At all events they only had one run. 

 They found three jackals together, and got away with 

 one, which gave them a splendid forty-five minutes' 

 gallop. Then the jack turned to bay, a proceeding 



