JAUNTS IN THE JUNGLE. 5 



man, whose tastes he is au fait at suiting ; conse- 

 quently, among his stock of rice-cakes, eggs, fowls, 

 arrack, &c., he not unfrequently is able to produce 

 that inestimable luxury, under such circumstances, 

 to the famished traveller a bottle or two of bitter 

 ale (surgit amari a-liguicT) ; and vastly do I com- 

 miserate the digestive powers of a man that do not 

 allow him an appetite at every ten miles, inhaling, 

 as he does, a fresh, fragrant, breeze that counteracts 

 the too powerful influence of a mid-day sun, and sets 

 into commotion a wilderness of foliage and lemon- 

 grass, whose rustling, added to the now swelling, now 

 scarcely audible, roar of the water-falls, as they leap 

 from rock to rock into the stupendous precipices 

 below, is the sole sound that disturbs the silence of 

 a scene as bright and cloudless as ever dawned on 

 Eden. 



After passing through thirty miles of this wild and 

 beautiful scenery, Newera Ellia a plain on the sum- 

 mit of the highest mountains in Ceylon studded 

 with its " cottages orne"es," the property of the po- 

 tentates of the island's civil service, appears in sight; 

 an oasis in which one can revel in an English 

 climate, feel once more the comfort of a long-aban- 

 doned woollen wardrobe, and enjoy a bottle of wine 

 that has not undergone the refrigerating process for 

 two hours before dinner ; but our destination lies 

 beyond this, for although an elephant now and then 

 frightens the inhabitants of this rus in nube out of 



