In The Meantime He Follows The Game To Other Districts, Living
In Caves Where They Happen To Abound, Or Making A Temporary But With
Grass And Sticks.
Every deer-path, every rock, every peculiar feature in the country,
every pool of water, is known to these hunting Veddahs; they are
consequently the best assistants in the world in elephant-hunting.
They
will run at top speed over hard ground upon an elephant's track which is
barely discernible even to the practised eye of a white man.
Fortunately, the number of these people is very trifling or the game
would be scarce.
They hunt like the leopard; noiselessly stalking till within ten paces
of their game, they let the broad arrow fly. At this distance who could
miss? Should the game be simply wounded, it is quite enough; they never
lose him, but hunt him up, like hounds upon a blood track.
Nevertheless, they are very bad shots with the bow and arrow, and they
never can improve while they restrict their practice to such short
ranges.
I have often tried them at a mark at sixty yards, and, although a very
bad hand with a bow myself, I have invariably beaten them with their own
weapons. These bows are six feet long, made of a light supple wood, and
the strings are made of the fibrous bark of a tree greased and twisted.
The arrows are three feet long, formed of the same wood as the bows. The
blades are themselves seven inches of this length, and are flat, like
the blade of a dinner-knife brought to a point.
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