The latter are mostly covered with forest, but they are beautifully
varied by numberless open plains and hills of grass land at an altitude
of from three to nearly nine thousand feet.
If Ceylon were an open country, there would be no large game, as there
would be no shelter from the sun. In the beautiful open down country
throughout the Ouva district there is no game larger than wild hogs,
red-deer, mouse-deer, hares, and partridges. These animals shelter
themselves in the low bushes, which generally consist of the wild
guavas, and occupy the hollows between the undulations of the hills. The
thorny jungles conceal a mass of game of all kinds, but in this retreat
the animals are secure from attack. In the vicinity of the coast, among
the `flat plains and thorny jungles,' there is always excellent shooting
at particular seasons. The spotted deer abound throughout Ceylon,
especially in these parts, where they are often seen in herds of a
hundred together. In many places they are far too numerous, as, from the
want of inhabitants in these parts, there are no consumers, and these
beautiful beasts would be shot to waste.
In the neighbourhood of Paliar and Illepecadewe, on the north-west
coast, I have shot them till I was satiated and it ceased to be sport.
We had nine fine deer hanging up in one day, and they were putrefying
faster than the few inhabitants could preserve them by smoking and
drying them in steaks. I could have shot them in any number, had I
chosen to kill simply for the sake of murder; but I cannot conceive any
person finding an enjoyment in slaying these splendid deer to rot upon
the ground.
I was once shooting at Illepecadewe, which is a lonely, miserable spot,
when I met with a very sagacious and original sportsman in a most
unexpected manner. I was shooting with a friend, and we had separated
for a few hundred paces. I presently got a shot at a peafowl, and killed
her with my rifle. The shot was no sooner fired than I heard another
shot in the jungle, in the direction taken by my friend. My rifle was
still unloaded when a spotted doe bounded out of the jungle, followed by
a white pariah dog in full chase. Who would have dreamt of meeting with
a dog at this distance from a village (about four miles)? I whistled to
the dog, and to my surprise he came to me, the deer having left him out
of sight in a few seconds. He was a knowing-looking brute, and was
evidently out hunting on his own account. Just at this moment my friend
called to me that he had wounded a buck, and that he had found the
blood-track. I picked a blade of grass from the spot which was tinged
with blood; and holding it to the dog's nose, he eagerly followed me to
the track; upon which I dropped it.
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