Chap. VIIL] 
PELICANS. 
263 
It is situated in the depth of the forests to the north- 
west of Trincomafie, and the tank is itself the basin 
of a broad and shallow valley, enclosed between two 
lines of low hills, that gradually sink into the plain as 
they approach towards the sea. The extreme breadth 
of the included space may be twelve or fourteen miles, 
narrowing to eleven at the spot where the retain- 
ing bund has been constructed across the valley; and 
when this enormous embankment was in effectual repair, 
and the reservoir filled by the rains, the water must 
have been thrown back along the basin of the valley 
for at least fifteen miles. It is difficult now to deter- 
mine the precise distances, as the overgrowth of wood 
and jungle has obliterated all lines left by the original 
level of the lake at its junction with the forest. Even 
when we rode along it, the centre of the tank was deeply 
submerged, so that notwithstanding the partial escape, 
the water still covered an area of ten miles in diameter. 
Even now its depth when full must be very considerable, 
for high on the branches of the trees that grow in the 
area, the last flood had left quantities of driftwood and 
withered grass ; and the rocks and banks were coated 
with the yeasty foam, that remains after the subsidence 
of an agitated flood. 
The bed of the tank was difficult to ride over, being 
still soft and treacherous, although covered everywhere 
with tall and waving grass ; and in every direction it 
was poched into deep holes by the innumerable ele- 
phants that had congregated to roll in the soft mud, to 
bathe in the collected water, or to luxuriate in the rich 
herbage, under the cool shade of the trees. The ground, 
too, was thrown up into hummocks like great molehills 
which, the natives told us, were formed by a huge earth- 
