( 4 ) 
and his brother, Alex. Norman. He had a very 
great admiration for the Pallisers (especially Fred) 
as sportsman and shot. Fred was the coolest 
and best elephant shot he ever knew, and Jack 
Tyndall told me,— inclusive of Sam Baker and him- 
self, — Palliser was the coolest and best elephant 
shot he ever saw, though for want of equal oppor- 
tunities his record was much lower than either. 
Edward was more with hounds and elk, and 
Gordon told of once when hunting in the higher 
Dimbula jungle, of the pack tracking a cheetah, 
which eventually jumped down into the middle 
of the pack, and though seized and held by the dogs, 
was playing havoc amongst them. Fred un- 
hesitatingly flung himself amongst them, and killed 
the brute with his hunting knife, luckily without 
hurt to himself . Though unconnected with Gordon's 
story, I may here record the same feat of poor 
James MacDonald when hunting in the Dikoya 
jungles, years afterward. Of this, no doubt, Charley 
Fetherstonhaugh could give particulars. [The story 
has been told in an old Observer.— 1)1). ] 
In those early Dimbula days they were at times 
sorely put to it for fresh provisions, and when 
rivers were in flood had often to depend on their 
guns for food, too glad on occasion to get even 
monkey. G. used to tell of one occasion when Fair- 
holme and he were out with their shot gun seek- 
ing pigeons, parrots, &c. and came on an elephant's 
fresh tracks. Fairholme had with him a favourite 
terrier dog, which at once went barking after the 
elephant, when the latter promptly charged. The 
dog as promptly rushed back behind his master. 
They turned the elephant several times by firing 
at it when the dog went persistently after it ; so 
altogether they had a lively and dangerous time 
of it, ere the huge brute made clear off. Another 
elephant yarn was that of Hunter of Scalpa on his 
way to Nuwara Eliya on his old white horse, 
meeting one in the jungle. The old horse turned 
round at once and set ofi home and never stopped 
till he got to some bungalow, I forget which, 
in spite of all Hunter could do. From Dimbula 
G. went, as I before said, to Ambagamuwa. There, 
it seems, it was mostly all work and little play, 
and it may be said his real planting life began. Of 
finding the blacJc cheetah cub I have already written. 
Another story was of an old sailor who was an 
assistant on one of the estates, evidently with 
previous experience of distillation of mountain-dew, 
and got convinced he could extract good spirit from 
fermentation of the coffee in the cistern. He set 
up a make-shift still, and sure enough he extracted 
a very poicerful spirit of which he was very -proud 
and also Yerjfond, and it proved too much for him 
eventually, and he had to depart. 
Prom Ambagamuwa Gordon moved to South 
Peacock (Gourakodde), and there he always kept 
four or five well-bred harriers, and had hare and 
small deer (red deer)— sport galore there. These 
dogs he brought with him to Wavendon, of which 
more anon. 
Gordon, as I before said, took charge of Wavendon 
estate on 1st July, 1853, having come to res'de there 
about a month previously. He brought with him a 
large labour force to meet the requirements of a 
heavy coffee crop which loomed before us, and which 
resulted eventually in even more than he anticipated 
and far in excess of estimate. Much was lost, and 
but for Gordon's labour a very large loss would 
have been sustained. To work off all this heavy 
crop we had only hand-pulpers, hence it was a case 
of the old rattle-traps going night and day with, of 
course, relays of coolies. Those who knew the 
construction of an old-fashioned pulper will best 
understand the following story :— The sieve was 
worked back and fore by a crank shaft driven by a 
cog wheel which was acted on by another cog on 
the cylinder shaft. Amongst Gordon's pack was 
a large black bull-terrier named Jack or Johnny 
as we felt inclined. Gordon was standing by, Avatch- 
ing the pulping, and Jack near him. Gordon 
observed one of the new coolies intently watching 
the cogs going round for some time, as he helped 
the pulper round (the said cogs were always well 
greased to make things easy). At last he saw the 
cooly deliberately put his finger between the cogs, 
and as a consequence it was nipped off, and dropped 
on to the ground to the poor new chum's constern- 
ation. Jack sniffed at the bit, picked it up and 
away with it into the cofiee ! 
About 10 o'clock one dark night Gordon heard 
a favorite dog of his, "Frenzy", making a very 
curious noise in a carpenter's shed which was close to 
his bed-room window. He lit his candle and went out. 
The dog was on her back still making this funny 
noise as G. approached. Suddenly she jumped up 
and ran towards home. G kept her off thinking 
she had a fit, put her in a small room and went 
to bed. Next morning "G.," Lyon Praser who 
was in the house and I examined the dog and 
found the teeth marks, evidently, of a cheetah on 
her throat or rather chest, too low to aosolutely 
choke her. We concluded the cheetah was young, 
else it would have carried the dog off, but could 
in no way account for "G" not seeing the animal 
well. Two nights after we heard a great row of all 
the dogs, and being prepared - guns loaded, &c. — 
Gordon and I got out quickly. The moon was bright 
and we could see plainly Jock, the bull dog, and 
a large seizer making an especially savage attack 
on some animal. Away we went down the patana 
after them. Gordon saw a black animal jumping 
over the high grass in front. Thinking it was Jock 
he did not fire at it. Well, a few days afterwards 
Dr. Kelson's cattle-man came up from the patanas 
below Wavendon, where Dr. Kelson, who was 
then on Pallegolle, on the Nuwara Eliya Pass, 
had a cattle shed, bringing a black cheetah he had 
shot that morning. Gordon bought it, and the skin 
adorned the sitting-room floor at Waveudon until 
it lost all the hair through moths and wear. By 
holding the skin in a certain light the spots could 
he easily traced, being slightly lighter in colour 
than the rest of the hair. 
One of our regular visitors at Wavendon was old 
George Steuart, the head of the firm which still bears 
his name. As all know he was originally Captain of 
.the old S.S. " Seaforth " that plied between Bombay 
and other Indian ports and Colombo. Well, the old 
love of "quarter deck " walk never left him, and the 
large verandah at Wavendon was a favourite one with 
him on his visits. One time he was there Lyon 
Fraser happened to be there, and whether by design 
or in an idle moment he sketched a wasp on the 
end wall. Gordon and P. happened to be in the 
room smoking, and they saw Steuart peering closely 
at it when suddenly up went his stick. He made a 
good steady poke at the insect and scrunched it 
well and walked away with a well-satisfied air. 
Of course G. and P. kept as quiet as possible, and had 
to rush out to the back to enjoy the joke. 
Steuart it was believed, never found out the deception. 
Many more anecdotes could be given of life at 
Wavendon in good Jack Gordon's time, but the 
above may suffice as a sample. 
