CEYLON LEECH. 
85 
engaging manners, familiar without being free, and 
appeared much delighted at seeing her features trans- 
ferred to paper. Her dress was becoming, her figure 
graceful, and her gait elegant. 
Before we quitted this . neighbourhood, which at 
particular times of the year is very unhealthy, we had 
the sad opportunity of seeing several unfortunate 
wretches who were afflicted with elephantiasis, which 
is truly a most horrible disease. The whole body is 
sometimes incrusted with large cutaneous tubercles, 
which give it the revolting appearance of being co- 
vered with a squalid elephant’s hide. In some in- 
stances the joints of the fingers and toes drop off, 
while the leg occasionally grows to such a prodigious 
size that the afflicted sufferer can scarcely drag it 
after him, looking more like the trunk of a dark 
rough-coated tree than a leg. It is impossible to 
conceive any thing more frightful than this visitation, 
to which the natives of Ceylon are particularly liable. 
It happened, on our return through some of the 
swamps which occasionally surround the bases of 
the hills, that several of our retinue were attacked by 
that dreadful plague of all travellers on this island, 
the Ceylon leech. It is a positive pest. Though very 
different from that used for medicinal purposes in 
Europe, it draws the blood much in a similar way 
but far more profusely, producing great pain. It is 
exceedingly small, averaging, in its ordinary state, 
from a quarter to the third of an inch in length, and 
almost transparent, so that the internal structure is 
plainly to be traced through a powerful magnifying 
glass. It is an uncommonly active little animal, and 
i 
