TRAVELLING IN CEYLON.—WILD ELEPHANTS AND THEIR HABITS.—ENCOUNTER WITH A BUFFALO.—FROM KANDY TO NEWERA-ELLIA.
A day was devoted to letter-writing, and to drives and walks around Kandy, and then the boys asked the Doctor where they were to go next.
"There are two or three routes from which to choose," was the reply, "and each has its own peculiar advantages, or the reverse. I have been considering them, and have selected the one that gives us the most to see in the little time we have at our disposal. We will start to-morrow morning for Newera-Ellia, which is on the road to Adam's Peak."
"Perhaps we will climb the peak," exclaimed Frank, "and repeat our experience of Fusiyama in Japan."
"Perhaps!" echoed Fred; "but we won't be certain of it till we have done it. But please tell us about the other routes you thought of," he added, addressing himself to Doctor Bronson.
THE LAST OF THE GIANTS.
"I had thought of going," responded the Doctor, "to some point on the eastern coast, and there taking a steamer for India; meantime I would have ordered our heavy baggage sent around by water, so that it would meet us on arrival. There are several of these places, and the towns and the routes leading to them are pretty much alike. The most important and interesting is Trincomalee—pronounced Trínk-o-ma-lée—which you can find on the map by drawing a line nearly due north-east from Kandy."
The boys had a map of Ceylon before them, and by following the Doctor's instructions they speedily found the place he had mentioned.
"You observe," he continued, "that it is quite a distance from Kandy to Trincomalee, and there is no railway to carry us. We should be obliged to travel by the ordinary roads of the country; conveyance would be difficult to obtain, and our fare not of the best. We should have a tiresome journey of several days through the forests and swamps of the eastern part of Ceylon, and I doubt if the novelty of the scenery would repay us. The same would be practically the case if we went to Jaffna or Kalpentyn, other places that I had in mind—and, besides, we might wait some time there before finding a steamer to take us where we wish to go."
"Well," answered one of the boys, with a laugh, "please tell us about Trincomalee and what we might see on the way there, and then we shall be all ready for Newera-Ellia."
"Trincomalee is a town of about 20,000 inhabitants," responded the Doctor, "and stands on one of the finest bays in Asia, if not in the world. It would be a place of great importance on account of the magnificent port, if the country back of it amounted to anything; but, unfortunately, the region for a long distance is marshy and nearly useless, and so the fine harbor of Trincomalee is of no consequence. Moreover it is quite unhealthy, owing to the malaria from the swamps; and it is a common remark in Ceylon that when the Government wishes to get rid of its soldiers, it sends them to Trincomalee to die of fever.
"As to what you could see on the way I might name several things. We should see a tropical forest in all its glory, and make a practical acquaintance with the trees by resting in their shadows, and perhaps climbing their trunks through the aid of the parasitic plants that cover them. There is one tree a few miles out of Kandy which is the remainder of quite a cluster that formerly stood there. All the rest have been killed by the parasites, and this one, the last of the giants, is completely covered, and cannot stand many years longer.
"Then we should pass some of the tanks for which Ceylon is famous, or, rather, for which she was famous centuries ago."
One of the boys asked what these tanks were, and the Doctor explained their nature.
"Rice will not grow without water, and in ancient times a system was adopted of making artificial ponds or tanks to retain water that could be used in the seasons when the rains were not falling. The first of these ponds of which we have any record was built by one of the kings of Ceylon 437 years before our era, or more than 2300 years ago. It became the fashion for kings to build tanks for the benefit of their people, and at one time there was a great number of them; two kings are said to have built sixteen tanks each, and the fashion of building them continued more than a thousand years.
"Some were built in the level country, and others among the hills; many still remain, but the greater number are in ruins and quite useless. The engineers who built them became famous, and in the eighth century the Rajah of Cashmere sent to Ceylon for engineers to construct tanks for him.
TANK SCENE IN CEYLON.
"The largest of these works in Ceylon is the great tank of Kalewera, which was built 1400 years ago. It is now in ruins and useless, but enough of it remains to show what it was originally; it is supposed to have been forty miles in circumference, and had an embankment of stone twelve miles long. There was another tank twenty miles in circumference, which was formed by damming a small stream with an embankment nearly two miles long and sixty feet wide; but, like most of the others, it is now useless.
"The Government has recently expended a great deal of money in repairing some of the ancient tanks. In 1867 they restored the old regulations of the kings of Ceylon relative to the use of water, the preservation of the embankments, and the settlement of disputes that are liable to arise. The English law-makers who examined these regulations said it would be very difficult to improve upon them; and as they were suited to the wants and habits of the natives, they were re-enacted in a body.
"So much for the tanks of Ceylon. Another novelty that we might enjoy in the journey to the coast would be the possible sight of a troop of wild elephants, as we should go through the region over which these great animals wander."
ELEPHANTS AT HOME.
"That would be a sight worth seeing," one of the boys answered; "but the subject of elephants is not a new one, as you know we visited the elephant hunting-ground in Siam, and heard all about the mode of catching the game."
"Quite right," replied the Doctor; "but, while we are about it, I may as well tell you some things about elephant-hunting here that we did not learn in Siam, because they are peculiar to Ceylon. In Siam they hunt by driving into the corral, as we saw, but in Ceylon they not only have the corral system, but a mode of hunting by Panickeas."
The boys opened their eyes, and asked what the Panickea was. Was it something to eat or wear, or was it a weapon to be used in killing the game?
"You are wrong in each guess," said Doctor Bronson; "the Panickea is a professional elephant-hunter, and his people have followed the business from time immemorial. He has the skill and cunning of the North American Indian or any other wily savage, and possesses a great deal of bravery, which is frequently called into use in his profession. The Panickeas live in the northern and north-eastern parts of Ceylon, and when not engaged at their time-honored business they devote themselves to fishing, or the pursuit of other game than the elephant, or they hire out as guides and servants to foreigners.
"Two of these men will go on an elephant-hunt armed only with a few strong ropes of different sizes. They track the elephant through the forest or in the long grass of the open plain, and steal up to him with the agility of cats, and without being seen. The elephant has a habit of swinging one of his hind-legs when standing still; they take advantage of this circumstance to slip a noose over his leg; and if he is not swinging it they tickle him, as though a fly were biting, and thus induce him to make the desired movement.
TYING UP AN ELEPHANT.
"As soon as they have noosed his leg they dart from under his feet; if they are in the forest, one of them takes a quick turn of the rope around a tree, but if in the open country, they drop it and run toward the nearest woods. The elephant pursues them, trailing the rope after him, and as soon as they are in the shelter of the trees they manage to secure him in the way I have described. Then, while he is tied by the hind-leg, one of the men worries him and attracts his attention, while the other slips a noose around one of his fore-legs. Then he lies down and rolls in anger, and while he is doing it they bind him still more.
"When he is tied up and safe they leave him, and he is subdued by the process that we learned about in Siam. Great numbers of elephants were formerly caught in this way and sent to India, where there has always been a good market for them, and they are also largely employed on public works in Ceylon. When the English obtained possession of this country, elephants were so numerous that as many as 200 could be taken at a single drive in a corral, and the beasts did great damage to the rice crops in the part of the country where they lived. A reward was offered for all elephants killed, and so great was the slaughter that the bounty was paid for 3500 killed in the north of Ceylon in the years 1846-'48, and for 2000 killed in the southern part in the five years previous to 1856.
"This wholesale destruction made such a scarcity that not enough elephants could be obtained for the public works, and the Government not only took off the bounty but ordered that no more licenses to shoot elephants should be granted.
ELEPHANTS UNDER A BANYAN-TREE.
"Elephants generally travel in herds varying from half a dozen to a hundred or more; but it is not unusual to find solitary elephants that have become separated from the herds from causes that are yet unknown to anybody. These solitary elephants are known as "rogues;" the name describes their character, and is an exact translation of the Cingalese 'hora-alliah' or thieving elephant. They don't even associate with other rogues, but travel singly, and do all the mischief they can; nearly all the damage to crops is caused by them, and some of them delight in concealing themselves near the roads and paths, and killing men who attempt to pass. They are very hard fighters, and the glory of killing a rogue elephant is greater than that of slaughtering a whole herd of ordinary ones.
"Another game animal that we might encounter on our way to the coast is the buffalo. Remember, the buffalo of Ceylon is no relative of the American buffalo, but is quite a different animal. He is domesticated, and used for ploughing and other heavy work, just as he is in the Philippine Islands and other parts of the East we have visited. He is docile enough when tame, but when wild he shows a good deal of ugliness not only in his appearance but in his disposition.
"There are many herds of wild buffaloes in the northern and north-eastern parts of the island, and they prefer the open country to the forests; during the daytime they like to lie in the mud or in pools of water, and are generally to be found around the old tanks in the lower parts of the country. They get into the water with only their heads visible, and if they can find a mud-bank to roll in when water is scarce, they are quite well satisfied. When a herd is disturbed, and there is a possibility of danger, they draw up in line with some of the oldest in front, and when they get in this position it is an even chance whether they will advance or retreat. They often rush at the natives when the latter are not looking for them, and more natives are killed by the buffaloes than by all other kinds of wild animals put together.
A NATIVE TREED BY A BUFFALO COW AND CALF.
"I once saw a native driven up a tree by a buffalo cow and calf, but he was not altogether unoffending in the business, as he had fired at the cow and wounded her. He just managed to keep clear of her horns and seize a lower limb of the tree; he clung to his gun, and as soon as he got safely among the limbs he reloaded and shot his pursuer. The calf remained, and he fastened a rope to its neck and with some difficulty dragged it home.
A DANGEROUS PREDICAMENT.
"The same day I was pursuing a buffalo that tried to escape by swimming a small pond. I ran around the head of the pond so as to meet him when he came out of the water, and had just entered it when he struck the solid ground. I fired when he was about twenty yards away, and put a bullet into his shoulder, which was the best spot I could aim at as he stood. I followed it with another bullet in the other shoulder, and with the same effect; the blood flowed steadily from both the wounds, but he did not show the slightest inclination to fall; on the contrary, he stood there and faced me, and made ready to charge. I felt for another cartridge to finish him with, or at all events to keep him where he was. To my horror, I found that I had no more cartridges about me, and my servants who carried my guns and ammunition were at least half a mile away.
"I dared not turn around to run, as my doing so would have been the signal for him to pursue me, and if he did, I had not the slightest chance of escape from being gored and trampled to death. I saw my gun-bearer coming, but he was still far off, and the brute was making ready for a charge. Men must think quickly under such circumstances, and my wits came to my aid.
"I had some loose powder in a flask, and a handful of small coins that would just go into the muzzle of the gun. Luckily the coins were in a rouleau, just as you see gold in a banking-house; it took me only a few seconds to drop in a heavy charge of powder and the roll of coins on top, and the moment he rushed on me I fired.
"The load struck him full in the face and stunned him; the instant I fired I turned and ran for a tree about a hundred yards away, and the time gained by bewildering him with the shot was just enough, without a second to spare. He stood near the foot of the tree and watched me for some time, the blood pouring from the two wounds I had made in his shoulders; after a while one of my attendants crept through the grass and passed my rifle to me, with a lot of fresh cartridges, and I was soon able to finish the brute. Sir Samuel Baker had a similar experience while hunting in Ceylon; in fact, it was so nearly like mine that the two stories have sometimes been mistaken for each other.
"And now that you know what might be seen on the road to Trincomalee," said Doctor Bronson, rising from his chair, "we will get ready for Newera-Ellia. We go there partly by rail, and partly by carriage-road; the train starts at seven o'clock, and leaves the main line at the first station from Kandy. The branch carries us to Gampola, and there we leave the train and take a carriage the rest of the way."
They were off the next morning, according to the programme; the railway only carried them a dozen or fifteen miles, and then they mounted what was called a coach, though it was really nothing more than a strong wagon, adapted to the rough roads of the mountains. The first part of the ride took them through a series of rice-fields, coffee plantations, and native villages of huts thatched with palm-leaves: they had an opportunity of seeing the native children playing before the doors in all the glory of nothing to wear.
NATIVE HOUSE AND CHILDREN.
Up and up went the road, and after a time the coffee estates gave way to tea plantations. The Doctor told the boys that coffee in Ceylon grows at any elevation between 1800 and 4000 feet, and tea flourishes between 4000 and 6000 feet. Tea culture in Ceylon is in its infancy, and most of those who have tried it have found it unprofitable; but they are persevering, and feel confident that it will turn out all right. The tea-planters say they have the same climate as Java, and if the latter can produce tea to advantage, there is no reason why it should not be profitable in Ceylon.
They had charming scenery all the way, and in many places it was unusually attractive. At one station (where they changed horses) the view from the veranda included a magnificent water-fall, where a good-sized river dashed in three streams over a precipice and united just below in a single torrent. As they rode along, the panorama of mountain and valley was constantly changing, and every minute seemed to have a new surprise in store for them.
They reached Newera-Ellia late in the afternoon, and were glad to surrender their seats in the uncomfortable coach. They had found the air growing steadily cooler as they approached their destination, and as the afternoon advanced it became necessary for them to don their thick overcoats. A fire was burning in the parlor of the hotel, and our friends were not at all reluctant to accept some of the heat it threw out.
There were carpets on the floors, and the walls of the house were made as though there was really a desire to exclude the cold rather than to welcome it. To the youths who had been so long in the tropics, and had struggled with the heat nearly every day and hour since their departure from Hong-Kong, it was rather a strange sensation to tread on soft carpets and sit around a cheerful fireplace, and they began to wonder whether they were really in Ceylon, or were dreaming.
We will let the boys tell the story of their visit to this part of the island, which they did in their next letter to friends at home. Following the plan they had found so effective, they divided the labor and devoted themselves to different parts of the description; they did it so skilfully, that when they had finished the letter it appeared to have been the effort of but one person instead of two. Perhaps they had a hint from Doctor Bronson, and possibly they did the whole work without assistance; quien sabe?