go 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. I. 
vast a wilderness of trees, had not long experience as- 
sured me that good game tracks would be found lead- 
ing to it, and by one of them I reached it. It was in 
the afternoon, just after one of those tropical sun- 
showers that decorate every branch and blade with 
pendant brilliants, and the little patena was covered 
with game, either driven to the open space by the drip- 
pings from the leaves or tempted by the freshness of the 
pasture : there were several pairs of elk, the bearded 
antlered male contrasting finely with his mate ; and 
other varieties of game in a profusion not to be found 
in any place frequented by man. It was some time 
before I would allow them to be disturbed by the rude 
fall of the axe, in our necessity to establish our bivouac 
for the night, and they were so unaccustomed to danger 
that it was long before they took alarm at our noises. 
" The following morning, anxious to gain a height for 
my observations in time to avail myself of the clear 
atmosphere of sunrise, I started off by myself through 
the jungle, leaving orders for my men, with my sur- 
veying instruments, to follow my track by the notches 
which 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 
m the nilloo 1 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 crouching position, his 
fiery gleaming eyes fixed on me. 
1 A species of one of the suffru- which grows abundantly in the 
ticose Acanthaccce (Strobilanthes), mountain ranges of Ceylon. 
