30 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. L 



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 

 w 7 hich 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 

 in 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 

 tieose Acanthacecs (Strobilanthes), mountain ranges of Ceylon. 



