No. 39. — 1889.] account of ceylon. 



259 



the remainder we took, cooked, and our ensign, Otto 

 Hermersen,* of Emden, having invited himself as a guest, we 

 all found that in truth, the meat was of better taste and 

 flavour than the best chicken. 



In the forests are many tigers, but as they have sufficient 

 prey in young buffaloes, oxen, deer, &c, men are compara- 

 tively safe from them. We much liked to see that they had 

 killed the heathens' cattle or other animals, for it is the 

 tiger's nature only to suck the blood, and as he does not eat 

 the flesh, and it was repugnant to the natives to eat anything 

 but what they slaughtered themselves, the meat came in very 

 handy for us, and we used to wish that the tiger would often 

 prepare a similar feast 



It is likewise very amusing in the forest to watch the 

 monkeys, who delight in staying on cocoanut trees ; and if 

 anybody happens to pass, they throw the nuts down on his 

 head. I shot several of them. They make enormous springs 

 from one tree to another, and when they have young ones 

 they take them in their arms and jump from branch to 

 branch. t They are easily trained, and I have seen one 

 myself that could fetch wine, and would refuse to give the 

 money before he got the wine. When boys tried to tease it 

 it would put the jar down, lay hold of stones, and throw them, 

 so that the boys had to run away. 



They are caught in a curious way. A whole cocoanut is 

 taken, a hole is bored into it, and the kernel loosened ; then 

 the monkeys come at once, scratch a bit of the kernel out 

 with their fingers, and when the natives rush up, the mon- 

 keys, rather than let the kernel go, allow themselves to be 

 caught. Some of them are totally black, and have partly 

 long tails, partly short tails ; some are grey, and these too 

 have both long and short tails.J A wild monkey can be 



* Otto Harmensz. (Dutch ed.). 



f The small brown kind (JSIacaeus pilcatus ; Sin. Hlavcb) is probably- 

 meant. 



% On the four species of Presbytes (Sin. vandaruva) found in Ceylon, 

 see Tennent, Nat. Hist., pp. 6-11. 



