Character of the Veddahs. 103 



The last drop of water evaporates, the deer leave the 

 country and migrate into other parts where mountains 

 attract the rain and the pasturage is abundant. The 

 Veddah burns the parched grass wherever he passes, 

 and the country is soon a blackened surface — not a blade 

 of pasture remains ; but the act of burning ensures a 

 sweet supply shortly after the rains commence, to which 

 the game and the Veddahs will then return. In the 

 mean time he follows the game to other districts, living 

 in caves where they happen to abound or making a 

 temporary hut with grass and sticks. 



Every deer-path, every rock, every peculiar feature 

 in the country, every pool of water, is known to these 

 hunting Veddahs ; they are consequently the best assist- 

 ants in the world in elephant-hunting. They will run 

 at top speed over hard ground upon an elephant's track 

 which is barely discernible even to the practiced eye of 

 a white man. Fortunately, the number of these people 

 is very trifling or the game would be scarce. They 

 hunt like the leopard ; noiselessly stalking till with- 

 in ten paces of their game, they let the broad arrow 

 fly. At this distance who could miss? Should the 

 game be simply wounded, it is quite enough ; they 

 never lose him, but hunt him up, like hounds, upon a 

 blood track. 



Nevertheless, they are very bad shots with the bow 

 and arrow, and they never can improve while they re- 

 strict their practice to such short ranges. 



I have often tried them at a mark at sixty yards, and, 

 although a very bad hand with a bow myself, I have 

 invariably beaten them with their own weapons. These 

 bows are six feet long, made of a light, supple wood, 

 and the strings are made of the fibrous bark of a tree, 



