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. I judged
the distance would not exceed two miles across, and I chose the
point of junction with the Badulla road two miles and a half from
my house. My reason for this was, that the elk invariably took
to the jungle at this place, which proved it to be the easiest
route.
This road, on completion, answered every expectation, connecting
the two sides of the Hog's Back by an excellent path of about two
miles, and débouching on the opposite side on a high patina peak
which commanded the whole country. Thus was the whole country
opened up by this single path, and should an elk play his old
trick and be off across the Hog's Back to Fort M'Donald river, I
could be there nearly as soon as he could, and also keep within
hearing of the bounds throughout the run.
I was determined to take the tent and regularly hunt up the whole
country on the other side of the Hog's Back, as the weather was
very bad at Newera Ellia, while in this spot it was beautifully
fine, although very windy.
I therefore sent on the tent, kennel-troughs and pots, and all
the paraphernalia indispensable for the jungle, and on the 31st
May, 1852, I started, having two companions - Capt. Pelly,
Thirty-seventh Regiment, who was then commandant of Newera Ellia,
and his brother on a visit. It was not more than an hour and a
half's good walking from my house to the high patina peak upon
which I pitched the tent, but the country and climate are so
totally distinct from anything at Newera Ellia that it gives
every one the idea of being fifty miles away.
We hewed out a spacious arbor at the edge of the jungle, and in
this I had the tent pitched to protect it from the wind, which it
did effectually, as well as the kennel, which was near the same
spot. The servants made a good kitchen, and the encampment was
soon complete.
There never could have been a more romantic or beautiful spot
for a bivouac. To the right lay the distant view of the low
country, stretching into an undefined distance, until the land
and sky appeared to melt together. Below, at a depth of about
three thousand feet, the river boiled through the rocky gorge
until it reached the village of Peréwellé at the base of the line
of mountains, whose cultivated paddy-fields looked no larger than
the squares upon a chess-board. On the opposite side of the
river rose a precipitous and impassable mountain, even to a
greater altitude than the facing ridge upon which I stood,
forming as grand a foreground as the eye could desire. Above,
below, around, there was the bellowing sound of heavy cataracts
echoed upon all sides.
Certainly this country is very magnificent, but it is an awful
locality for hunting, as the elk has too great an advantage over
both hounds and hunters. Mountainous patinas of the steepest
inclination, broken here and there by abrupt precipices, and with
occasional level platforms of waving grass, descend to the
river's bed. These patina mountains are crowned by extensive
forests, and narrow belts of jungle descend from the summit to
the base, clothing the numerous ravines which furrow the
mountain's side. Thus the entire surface of the mountains forms
a series of rugged grasslands, so steep as to be ascended with
the greatest difficulty, and the elk lie in the forests on the
summits and also in the narrow belts which cover the ravines.
The whole country forms a gorge, like a gigantic letter V. At the
bottom roars the dreaded torrent, Fort M'Donald river, in a
succession of foaming cataracts, all of which, however grand
individually, are completely eclipsed by its last great plunge of
three hundred feet perpendicular depth into a dark and narrow
chasm of wall-bound cliffs.
The bed of the river is the most frightful place that can be
conceived, being choked by enormous fragments of rock, amidst
which the irresistible torrent howls with a fury that it is
impossible to describe.
The river is confined on either side by rugged cliffs of gneiss
rock, from which these fragments have from time to time become
detached, and have accordingly fallen into the torrent, choking
the bed and throwing the obstructed waters into frightful
commotion. Here they lie piled one upon the other, like so many
inverted cottages; here and there forming dripping caverns; now
forming walls of slippery rock, over which the water falls in
thundering volumes into pools black from their mysterious depth,
and from which there is no visible means of exit.
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