Many Never Returned, And Fort M'Donald River
Became A By-Word As A Locality To Be Always Dreaded.
After a long run one day, the pack having gone off in this fatal
direction, I was determined, at any price, to hunt them up, and
accordingly I went some miles down the Badulla road to the
limestone quarries, which are five miles from the Newera Ellia
plain.
From this point I left the road and struck down into the
deep, grassy valley, crossing the river (the same which runs by
the road higher up) and continuing along the side of the valley
until I ascended the opposite range of hills. Descending the
precipitous side, I at length reached the paddy-fields in the low
country, which were watered by Fort M'Donald river, and I looked
up to the lofty range formed by the Hog's Back hill, now about
three thousand feet above me. Thus I had gained the opposite
side of the Hog's Back, and, after a stiff pull lip the mountain,
I returned home by a good path which I had formerly discovered
along the course of the river through the forest to Newera Ellia,
via Rest-and-be-Thankful Valley and the Barrack Plains, having
made a circuit of about twenty-five miles and become thoroughly
conversant with all the localities. I immediately determined to
have a path cut from the Badulla Road across the Hog's Back
jungle to the patinas which looked down upon Fort M'Donald on the
other side and, up which I had ascended on my return.
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