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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XT. 



Aatchin, Siam, Tamasserye, and Aracean or other regions, 

 so that the merchants who yearly negotiate with the East 

 India Company for elephants pay a large sum for those 

 from Ceylon, as will be shown at length hereafter. 



Elephants are often "baptized" 9 with the name of 

 holbuiken (lit. hollow stomachs, i.e., gluttons), and this for 

 good reason, as they must continually eat by night and day,, 

 except during the short intervals of sleep, without their 

 hunger being in any way appeased, having a great heat and 

 boiling in the stomach, by reason whereof what they eat is 

 in a short time, and sometimes in less than a quarter of an 

 hour, sufficiently digested and passed in the usual way. 



And in order that one should not doubt the truth of this, 

 it should be stated here that it has often been observed that 

 when they have swallowed whole, without breaking them, 

 a certain kind of round fruit called holanges 10 and slime 

 apples, it is known in Ceylon that the shells of the fruits 

 (little less than the little finger in thickness) are found to 

 have been passed quite empty without any kernel in them, 

 the same being digested in a short time, notwithstanding 

 that the shell being so hard one would have thought it 

 impossible that what was contained in it should be absorbed 

 in so short a time. 



When the elephants are in the stables they are fed on 

 pisang trees (arecanut), branches of the clappus (cocoanut) 

 trees, and all sorts of grass. But in the jungle they eat 

 besides nely (paddy) and other fine grain, also various kinds 

 of branches and leaves called in the Sinhalese language 

 panakolle, kaylewel, patnoege, oeggas, mandoewel, amiekas- 

 Jcolle, and other kinds too numerous to enumerate here, 

 and of little avail to satisfy the curiosity of the reader. 11 

 Therefore I shall touch on other points, and say that as the 

 elephants have to be continually eating to satisfy their 

 hunger, so it is no wonder that they drink a large quantity 

 of water in proportion to the food which they consume in 

 such quantity ; and I have seen with my own eyes an 

 elephant drink fifty cans of water at a time. It remains also 



