Chap. V.] 
THE ELEPHANT. 
167 
either in the enclosure or the stables. A conception of 
the whole operation from commencement to end will be 
best conveyed by describing the progress of an elephant 
corral as I witnessed it in 1847 in the great forest on 
the banks of the Alligator Kiver, the Kimbul-oya, in 
the district of Kornegalle, about thirty miles north-west 
of Kandy. 
Kornegalle, or Kurunai-galle, was one of the ancient 
capitals of the island, and the residence of its kings 
from a.d. 1319 to 1347. 1 The dwelling-house of the 
principal civil officer in charge of the district now oc- 
cupies the site of the former palace, and the ground 
is strewn with fragments of columns and carved stones, 
the remnants of the royal buildings. The modern town 
consists of the bungalows of the European officials, each 
surrounded with its own garden ; two or three streets 
inhabited by Dutch descendants and by Moors ; and a 
native bazaar, with the ordinary array of rice and curry 
stuffs and cooking chattees of brass or burnt clay. 
The charm of the village is the unusual beauty of 
its position. It rests within the shade of an enormous 
rock of gneiss upwards of 600 feet in height, nearly 
denuded of verdure, and so rounded and worn by time 
that it has acquired the form of a couchant elephant, 
from which it derives its name of Aetagalla, the Eock 
of the Tusker. 2 But Aetagalla is only the last eminence 
in a range of similarly-formed rocky mountains, which 
here terminate abruptly ; and, which from the fantastic 
shapes into which their gigantic outlines have been 
1 See Sir J. Emerson Tennent's resemblance in shape to the hack 
Ceylon,Yo\. I. Pt. m. ch. xii. p. 415. of that insect, and hence is said 
2 Another enormous mass of to have been derived the name of 
gneiss is called the Kuruminia- the town, Kuruna-galle or Korne- 
galla, or the Beetle-rock, from its galle. 
m 4 
