806 THE TKOPICAL AGEICDLTUEIST. [June 1, 1900. 
SPORT IN CEYLON: 
,5 . SNIPE SHOOTING HOUJUB ICiVKTHALAI LAKE, 
. 'XBINCOKALEE. 
.' Kanthalai Lake is on the coach road between 
Kandy and Trinconialee, twenty-five miles from 
the latter place. The eastern jiortioii of Ceylon 
-13 infinitely superior to Colombo in iioint of 
feliniate ; the atmosphere is much drier, and there 
'Is J none of that damp hot-house sensation that 
jone experiences on the Wes^tern Coa,st. Kantlialai 
IS excellent as regards climate, being not far 
from the Eastern Coast. It has the same dry- 
ness as Triucomalee, while for some reason or 
■other it always appears to hs a good deal cooler. 
.The rest house is in a condition of hopeless dirt 
and decay; the erection of a new one a little 
east of the ancient site has been ajiproved, 
but goodness knows when the work- will 
be done. At present , those who stay at Kan- 
thalai must be prepared for a good deal of 
.discomfort ; strange reptiles, many of which bite 
r-virulently, abound. There are also |)iles of old 
tiles close to the bungalow, in which some cobras 
live ; these are said to roam from room to room in 
the night, but as I v.'as always fasc asleep then, I 
cannot vouch for the accuracy or otherwise of this 
-report. The dining room of tlie next house is a 
curiosity in the way of aichitecture. Imagine a 
large square space with a ramshackle roof over it 
.>vyith a bit of wall in front, and closed in behind, but 
"open completely' to the air and the poochies of 
heaven at the two sides. ■ Here and there are 
crooked trunks of trees serving as pillars to;prevent 
the ancient roof falling upon one. The floor is of 
concrete seamerl with great irregular fissures as if 
by an earthquake : from these great cracks batta- 
lions of ants and other things march forth, to 
devour and destroy squads of geckos, chase each 
other and catch flies up and down the decaying 
■walls, or drop from the roof with a plob on the floor. 
''Down below gleams tiie lovely lake, 
■•: - ' A MYSTERIOUS FAIR VLAND 
'I'lwthed ' in mystic moonbeams. Looking over 
'Jihe moonlit water one dreams of tlie armies of 
'Workmen who built the great bund sixteen-hun- 
dred years ago. Wonders how many thousands 
of lives the huge work cost, and then almost ex- 
pects to see a procession of dusky Sinhalese 
flitting along tlic iiuge dam which they spent their 
lives over iti those ancient days, when stately 
'cities stood on sites which have since become 
pathless jungle. So utterly forgotten are those 
once beautiful temples that the x illagers even are 
utterly ignorant of the positions of tlie ruins, and 
|t).ey are only discovered by the survey parties 
"Svhen mapping out the country- The Government 
•surveyors often find forgotten tanks and ruins 
■■within a few miles of a village, of which the 
'villagers themselves are completely ignorant. 
' There are 
NO PROPER SHIKARIS IN CEYLON, 
there arc nocastes svho dare leave the beaten tracks 
in the jungle ; the mysterious forests whicli clothes 
■go great a portion of this beautiful island are 
^^practically a sealed book. Anyone who has the 
J-tinie nrght with great profit to himself explore 
''these jungles, and discover patches of open 
''ccfuntry where he could shoot to his heart's con- 
tent, among eheetal and sambhur, ■which have 
brobably never even heard the crack of a rille. 
But I intended to 
'-VVRITE ABOUT SNIPE SHOOTING, 
?and I have stayed away to talk of deer. The 
icdach roatl passes the. resthouse running along 
ithe gieut bund iox a couple of miles. T'wo or three 
hundreds yards castof theiesthouse there is a sluice 
by which the paddy iie'ds below are irrigated. 
One can see the )nuMy li-jlds from the bungalow, 
and a path leads straight down to them, bo that 
one can reach their edge in a few minutes walking. 
Here and there among the ))addy are Binall 
p.;iches of bush, and by beating these one 
can nearly always get a few snipe out. Tlie 
snipe go into the sliide during liie lieat of the day, 
and if there happens to be a handy lusii in the mid- 
dle of the j)addy some of tiiem sit under it, in 
preference to betaking themselves to the big juirgle 
round tlie edges of the cultivation. One can get 
very sportiiiff shots by sending a coolie just inside 
the big jungle at the edge of tne paddy, and 
instructing him to walk along making a noise 
parallel to the edge and about twenty yards inside, 
if the trees are large the si ipe get very high uj) 
before they come out, anil 0!ie gets liigh overliead 
rocketters of the most superior de.scrijition. 
Although the pacidy just beloiv the resthouse 
always holds a few snipe it is not worth taking 
seriously. Sujiposing one wants a few birds for 
the larder au hour or au hour and a quarter will 
be enough time to go dov.'ii and get back agaiu 
with two or three eounle. 
To get to ground where the snipe are numerous 
one follows the little stream which comes from the 
sluice, across the near paddy and then turns away 
to the right l)y a jungle path wliich after a walk of 
three-quarters of a mile biings one out in some 
Old cultivation w hich is known locally by the 
name of the " Director s i^aJdy-fields." Here the 
snipe, though usually wild, 
ARE AT ANY RATE PLENTIFUI.. 
In two hours shooting a couple of guns 
can easily get twenty or twenty-live couple, and of 
course if one stuck at it the whole day working 
the ground backwards and forwards systemati- 
cally it would be easy to make a large bag. 
There are, however, snakes, as I discovered one 
day to ray cost, and 1 would strongly advise 
any one siiootiug tliere to wear putties or gaiters, 
not stockings alone. I was shooting one 
day in short knickerbockers and socks with 
my legs ^bare. I had two snipe down near 
some b^.shes in lontr gi'css, and was 
looking fo them. All at once I felt what I thought 
was one of those jungle ropes round one leg and 
glancing down saw I liad a snake ia a large loose 
coil round my bare leg. I gave one instinctive 
and very high jump, and the snake fell ofi'and 
vanished at once in the grass. I did cot see its 
head, but I am almost certain from the hurried 
glance 1 got ef part of its body that it was a cobra. 
I never found the snipeWhich I had marked down 
to just about the spot where I encountered the 
snake, and it struck me afterwards that perhaps 
tlie snipe fell near the snake, and the snake bagged 
it and h^^d it in its mouth when it was round my 
leg, and so (lid not bite me. I don't know enough 
about snakes to venture an opinion as to whether 
a snake would take a dead or dying bird which 
fell near it. This adventure gave me a lesson, and 
1 i.ever intend to shoot amoue' long grass without 
putties again in any snake-infested country. Some 
of the shooting in the " Doctor's Paddy-fields " 
was among big trees spaced well apart, and was 
about as pretty as anything one could desire. The 
trees were not too leafy, and the chances one got 
at snipe as they zigzagged through the openings 
were quite ideal. One bad deplorable habit the 
Kanthalai birds liave : When they are shot at a 
bib tliey make off to the thick jungle where one 
cannot get at them again : so it is a case of 
