CHAP. I.] LEOPAKDS. 143 



I cut in the bark of the trees. On leaving the plain, 

 I availed myself of a fine wide game track which lay in 

 my direction, and had gone, perhaps, half a mile from the 

 camp, when I was startled by a slight rustling in the 

 nilloo l to my right, and in another instant, by the spring 

 of a magnificent leopard which, in a bound of full eight 

 feet in height over the lower brushwood, lighted at my 

 feet within eighteen inches of the spot whereon I stood, 

 and lay in a~^cVouching position, his fiery gleaming eyes 

 fixed on me. 



" The predicament was not a pleasant one. I had 

 no weapon of defence, and with one spring or blow of 

 his paw the beast could have annihilated me. To move 

 I knew would only encourage his attack. It occurred 

 to me at the moment that I had heard of the power 

 of man's eye over wild animals, and accordingly I fixed 

 my gaze as intently, as the agitation of such a moment 

 enabled me, on his eyes : we stared at each other for 

 some seconds, when, to my inexpressible joy, the beast 

 turned and bounded down the straight open path before 

 me. This scene occurred just at that period of the 

 morning when the grazing animals retired from the open 

 patena to the cool shade of the forest : doubtless, the 

 leopard had taken my approach for that of a deer, or 

 some such animal. And if his spring had been at a 

 quadruped instead of a biped, his distance was so well 

 measured, that it must have landed him on the neck of a 

 deer, an elk, or a buffalo ; as it was, one pace more would 

 have done for me. A bear would not have let his victim 

 off so easily." 



It is said, but I never have been able personally to verify 

 the fact, that the Ceylon leopard exhibits a peculiarity in 

 being unable entirely to retract its claws within their 

 sheaths. 



Of the lesser feline species the number and variety 



1 A species of one of the suffruticose in the mountain ranges of Ceylon. 

 Acanthacece which grows abundantly See ante, p. 90 n. 



