at a lonely out-station, almost the only
means of exercise and recreation to be had.

When a man looks about him with a purpose,
it is remarkable how many different animals he
may see any day of his life peculiar to the country
in which he lives. Let me take to-day. I have
mentioned the flying-fox. Starting for a short
drive in the afternoon with some children, one
of the children all but treads on a small snake
before she reaches the carriage. Within a mile
of the house, we see an iguano by the roadside,
which I touch with my whip as we pass;
a little further on, a large Kabere-goya, leisurely
crossing the road, can scarcely be induced to
wait until the carriage has passed, and almost
walks under the wheels. The iguano is a lizard
about three feet long, with a forked snake-like
tongue, and a shagreen looking skin, of a dark
slate colour. It makes very good soup. A gentleman
recently told me that one of his children was
suffering from atrophy, and that it derived the
most marked benefit from eating this nutritious
food. The Kabere-goya is a much larger lizard
than the iguano, and has yellow marks upon a
skin, the ground colour of which is also slate.
The Kabere-goya, is a more unclean animal than
the iguano, and is not eaten. It grows to the
length of about six, and even eight feet, and
takes readily to the water. I often meet it
about the swampy fields, or in ditches by the
wayside. It is slow in its movements, generally,
and about this place does not seem to fear man
much. When it thinks it is going to be molested,
it swells out the pouch under its throat,
and makes an angry noise, like a snake, though
louder. I have been told that it has been
known to carry off young children. The first
time I learnt this, was during an examination in
the Singhalese language, and my informant was
a Singhalese gentleman, who was one of the
examiners. He informed me of it in the vernacular,
during the colloquial part of the examination,
and as I had not the slightest desire
to prolong it, I did not pursue the subject. I
have since heard from another source that this
huge lizard has carried off children, and I see no
reason to doubt it; for its strength and its
capacity for swallowing, are great. I recently
buried one in order to exhume its skeleton, when
the ants and other animals shall have picked the
bones clean.

Almost everybody has heard how a gentleman
in India sent to England a faithful picture of
some scene in the land of his sojourn; how the
drawing in due course of time found its way
into an illustrated newspaper; how mortified he
was to see groups of cocoa-nut-trees sprinkled
here and there, where never a cocoa-tree should
be, seeing that none ever could or would grow in
that region; and how, in reply to his
remonstrances, he was told that " the British public
demanded palm-trees" in an Oriental picture.

I labour under the painful conviction that the
British public demands elephants in an account
of Ceylon, and how to meet this demand in a
satisfactory manner is my difficulty; for, in the
first place, Sir Emerson Tennent has already
given a full and accurate description of the
habits and formation of this animal; and, in the
second place, not only do I disclaim any
pretension to be an elephant shot, but— shall I
confess it?— I have never, during a residence of
eighteen years in this island, succeeded in meeting
a wild elephant face to face. Here is a position
for a man to be in who professes to write
about elephants! Should any one ask where
I have been, where I ought to have seen them, I
reply, I have travelled from the northernmost
point of the island, which is Point Pedro, to the
most southern, which is Dondera Head. I have
performed part of that journey along the central
road between Elephant Pass and Kandy, in the
days when that road was so little frequented
that you might go to any man's straw-rick and
pull out as much straw as you required for your
cattle without asking leave or making payment,
and when not to meet an elephant on the journey
was a thing to be wondered at. I have travelled
from Colombo, on the west coast, to Batticaloa,
on the east, passing through the country of the
Veddahs, the wild men of Ceylon, where
elephants are known to abound. Through this
region I passed with children and a lady. The
heat by day was so fearful that we lay panting
boughs, or of a tent, for houses there were
none, and at night we proceeded on our journey
through the forests. On these occasions it was
necessary for me always to ride in advance with
gun in hand, for the palanquin-bearers almost
invariably throw down their burdens and take
to their heels at the sight of an elephant. I
have made various journeys through the lower
divisions of the Badulla district, where Major
Rogers shot so many elephants, travelling by
moonlight through places where their marks
were to be seen on every side. I have ridden
from Trincomalie to Jaffna by the coast road,
and I walked, not long ago, from Bomparipo to
Marichikatte, near Aripo, sleeping in the very
heart of the forest until two in the morning, and
then pursuing my way by moonlight until daybreak,
and seeing the fresh marks of an elephant
who had preceded me but a short while before.

In the present day, not only has the number
of elephants in the island greatly decreased, but
the number of amateur hunters has diminished
also. Planters arc no longer roused, as in times
gone by, by hearing the elephants pulling the
thatch out of the roofs of their frail bungalows
amidst the unfelled forest. Now, the difficulty
often is to discern a patch of forest from the
verandah of the planter's shingled and cozy
cottage; far as the eye can reach all is coffee,
and soon firewood will be a commodity to be
brought from afar; nay, if I am not mistaken,
this difficulty already exists in some localities.

The elephants have retired further away into
places where the hills have never yet resounded
to the sound of the axe or the crash of falling
timber, and where they can disport themselves
at will in the ruined tanks erected in bygone