My own
design by Paget of Piccadilly, who turned out the perfection of steel;
and I arrived in Ceylon with a pack of fine foxhounds and a favourite
greyhound of wonderful speed and strength, 'Bran,' who, though full of
years, is still alive.
The usual drawbacks and discomforts attendant upon a new settlement
having been overcome, Newera Ellia forms a delightful place of
residence. I soon discovered that a pack of thoroughbred foxhounds were
not adapted to a country so enclosed by forest; some of the hounds were
lost, others I parted with, but they are all long since dead, and their
progeny, the offspring of crosses with pointers, bloodhounds and
half-bred foxhounds, have turned out the right stamp for elk-hunting.
It is a difficult thing to form a pack for this sport which shall be
perfect in all respects. Sometimes a splendid hound in character may be
more like a butcher's dog than a hound in appearance, but the pack
cannot afford to part with him if he is really good.
The casualties from leopards, boars, elk and lost dogs are so great that
the pack is with difficulty kept up by breeding. It must be remembered
that the place of a lost dog cannot be easily supplied in Ceylon. Newera
Ellia is one of the rare climates in Ceylon which is suited to the
constitution of a dog.
