- Start for Hunting
- The Find - A Gallant Stag - "Bran" and Lucifer" - "Phrenzy's"
Death - Buck at Bay - The Cave Hunting-box- "Madcap's" Dive - Elk
Soup - Former Inundation - " Bluebeard" leads off - " Hecate's"
Course -The Elk's Leap - Variety of Deer - The Axis - Ceylon
Bears - Variety of Vermin - Trials for Hounds - Hounds and their
Masters - A Sportsman "shut up"- A Corporal and Centipede.
>From June to November the south-west monsoon brings wind and
mist across the Newera Ellia mountains.
Clouds of white fog boil up from the Dimboola valley like the
steam from a huge cauldron, and invade the Newera Ellia plain
through the gaps in the mountains to the westward.
The wind howls over the high ridges, cutting the jungle with its
keen edge, so that it remains as stunted brushwood, and the
opaque screen of driving fog and drizzling rain is so dense that
one feels convinced there is no sun visible within at least a
hundred miles.
There is a curious phenomenon, however, in this locality. When
the weather described prevails at Newera Ellia, there is actually
not one drop of rain within four miles of my house in the
direction of Badulla. Dusty roads, a cloudless sky and dazzling
sunshine astonish the thoroughly-soaked traveler, who rides out
of the rain and mist into a genial climate, as though he passed
through a curtain. The wet weather terminates at a mountain
called Hackgalla (or more properly Yakkadagalla, or iron rock).
This bold rock, whose summit is about six thousand five hundred
feet above the sea, breasts the driving wind and seems to command
the storm. The rushing clouds halt in their mad course upon its
crest and curl in sudden impotence around the craggy summits.
The deep ravine formed by an opposite mountain is filled with the
vanquished mist, which sinks powerless in its dark gorge; and the
bright sun, shining from the east, spreads a perpetual rainbow
upon the gauze-like cloud of fog which settles in the deep
hollow.
This is exceedingly beautiful. The perfect circle of the rainbow
stands like a fairy spell in the giddy depth of the hollow, and
seems to forbid the advance of the monsoon. All before is bright
and cloudless; the lovely panorama of the Ouva country spreads
before the eye for many miles beneath the feet. All behind is
dark and stormy; the wind is howling, the forests are groaning,
the rain is pelting upon the hills.
The change appears impossible; but there it is, ever the same;
season after season, year after year, the rugged top of Hackgalla
struggles with the storms, and ever victorious the cliffs smile
in the sunshine on the eastern side; the rainbow reappears with
the monsoon, and its vivid circle remains like the guardian
spirit of the valley,.
It is impossible to do justice to the extraordinary appearance of
this scene by description.
