7S TJic Rifle and, J found iii Ceylon, 



he suddenly came running back to say that :i vogue 

 elephant was bathing himself on the opposite shore, at 

 about two miles' distance. 



I immediately took my guns and went after him. 

 My path lay along the top of the great dam, which 

 formed a causeway covered with jungle. This cause- 

 way was aboul sixty feet in breadth and two miles in 

 length : the- lake washed its base about twenty feet 

 below the summit. The opposite shun- was a fine 

 plain, bordered by open finest, and the lake spread into 

 the grassy surface in wide and irregulai hass. 



I continued my course along tin- causeway at a last 

 walk, and on arriving at the extremity of the lake I 

 noticed that the ancient dam continued for a much 

 greater distance. This, together with the greal height 

 of the masonry from the level of the water, proved 

 that the dimensions of the lake had formerly been of 

 much greater extent. 



Descending by the rugged stones which formed the 



dam wall, I reached the plain, and, keeping close to 

 the water's edge, 1 rounded a large neck of land 

 covered with trees, which projected for some distance 



into the lake. I knew , by the position of the elephant 

 when I first saw him, that he was not far beyond this 



promontory, and I carefully advanced through the open 



forest, hoping that I might meet him there on his exit 

 from his hath. In this I was mistaken, lor on passing 

 through this little belt of trees I saw the elephant still 

 in the lake, belly deep, about three- hundred paces from 



me. IK- was full a hundred and twenty yards from the 



shore, and I was pnz/.led how to act. lie was an im- 

 mense brute, being a fine specimen of a tank " rogue." 

 This class are generally the worst description of rogue 



