The danger is in many cases extreme, although
the greater portion of the herd may at other times be perhaps easily
killed. There is no certainty in a shot. An elephant may be discerned by
the eye looming in an apparent mist formed by the countless intervening
twigs and branches which veil him like a screen of network. To reach the
fatal spot the ball must pass through perhaps fifty little twigs, one of
which, if struck obliquely, turns the bullet, and there is no answering
for the consequence. There are no rules, however, without exceptions,
and in some instances the following of the game through the thickest
jungle can hardly be avoided.
The character of the country in Ceylon is generally very unfavourable to
sport of all kinds. The length of the island is about two hundred and
eighty miles, by one hundred and fifty in width; the greater portion of
this surface is covered with impenetrable jungles, which form secure
coverts for countless animals.
The centre of the island is mountainous, torrents from which, form the
sources of the numerous rivers by which Ceylon is so well watered. The
low country is flat. The soil throughout the island is generally poor
and sandy.
This being the character of the country, and vast forests rendered
impenetrable by tangled underwood forming the principal features of the
landscape, a person arriving at Ceylon for the purpose of enjoying its
wild sports would feel an inexpressible disappointment.
Instead of mounting a good horse, as he might have fondly anticipated,
and at once speeding over trackless plains till so far from human
habitations that the territories of beasts commence, he finds himself
walled in by jungle on either side of the highway. In vain he asks for
information. He finds the neighbourhood of Galle, his first landing
place, densely populated; he gets into the coach for Colombo. Seventy
miles of close population and groves of cocoa-nut trees are passed, and
he reaches the capital. This is worse and worse--he has seen no signs of
wild country during his long journey, and Colombo appears to be the
height of civilisation. He books his place for Kandy; he knows that is
in the very centre of Ceylon--there surely must be sport there, he
thinks.
The morning gun fires from the Colombo fort at 5 A.M. and the coach
starts. Miles are passed, and still the country is thickly
populated--paddy cultivation in all the flats and hollows, and even the
sides of the hills are carefully terraced out in a laborious system of
agriculture. There can be no shooting here!
Sixty miles are passed; the top of the Kaduganava Pass is reached,
eighteen hundred feet above the sea level, the road walled with jungle
on either side.
