MULLAITIVU. 275 



and in this way I saw, to-day, the legs of two deer walking quietly 

 along when I could not see a single hair of their bodies. A monkey 

 or a squirrel is quickly lost to view when running over this thick 

 scrub. 



"Reached Nedunkenni about noon, and at once fell to work on 

 the pile of dead monkeys. By sunset I had skinned two of them 

 and skeletonized four, and another had been prepared as a skeleton 

 by Henrique. We quartered in a sort of hut erected for the ac- 

 commodation of the road engineers, a roof of cocoa palm leaves, 

 mud walls three feet high, and a clean dirt floor. 



" Thursday, April Mh.—Miex I had skeletonized the eighth 

 monkey we went to the burial jDlace of the elephant. Sold. It was, 

 or had been, a baby elephant, a wretchedly small baby at that, and 

 the bones were worthless. The people of the village told us of the 

 remains of another and much larger elephant near a village named 

 Ayladdi, five miles farther on, and we started for it at once, bag 

 and baggage. Reached the village just before nightfall, and for 

 four annas hired a roof under which I slung my hammock and slept 

 in peace and comfort. Noticed xo. the village two skins of axis deer 

 and one of sambur from animals killed near by. 



" Friday, April oth. — Took three men from the village, and set off 

 very early on foot through the jungle to look for the remains of the 

 elephant. We traversed a lovely path, and once when we emerged 

 into a httle open glade I caught sight of a jackal, which was more 

 than he could say of me. He presently opened his mouth and be- 

 gan to pour forth his morning song, but just as he reached the sec- 

 ond verse, my bullet went through his liver. He suddenly stopped 

 singing, spun round hke a top for a few minutes, snarled, yelped, 

 bit, and scratched, and then quietly lay down, never to get up any 

 more. At noon his skeleton hung on the side of our bandy cover. 



"Sold again. The elephant proved to have been a young one, 

 also, but not quite so babyish as the other. The skuU alone was 

 perfect and we carried it off, rather disappointed at the net results 

 so far in elephant debris. 



" Went back again to Nedunkenni, where we arrived at 3 p.m. 

 Although this is a very small village of not more than a dozen huts, 

 it boasts a free mission-school kept by an old Tamil native-Christian, 

 educated at the Jaffna mission, and there named Joseph Emerson. 

 Joseph was very intelligent and polite, and spoke English with an 

 ease and fluency which quite startled me. But he was wasting hia 

 sweetness on the desert air, for his school contained only sis pupils. 



