The Dutchmen who followed the Portuguese were content to remain in their barricaded coastal trading posts. A century later came the British East India Company with a small army of Sepoys commanded by British officers. The ruler of Kandy, quite secure within his green-worm defenses, was Raja Sinha, one of the cruelest of Oriental despots. He spurned all overtures at negotiation with officers of the trading company.
Once again his kingdom was invaded. During the march into the mountains the Sepoy soldiers suffered so badly from the attacks of the worms that some died and many others deserted. The force was so badly depleted that further advance became impossible. Only when British regulars took over the invasion years later was an armed force of white men able to reach Kandy. Previously only individuals, chiefly Portuguese Franciscans, had been able to cross the terrible green-worm barrier.
Sir Emerson Tennent, British historian of Ceylon, describes these worms as normally about an inch long, slender as needles, and able to stretch their bodies to double the ordinary length. Ceylonese natives had been able to protect themselves to some extent by smearing their bodies with lemon juice and tobacco ashes.
“On descrying the prey,” says Tennent, “they advance rapidly by semi-circular strides, fixing one end firmly and arching the other forward until by successive advances they can lay hold of the traveller’s foot, when they disengage from the ground and ascend his dress in search of an aperture. The wound they make is so skillfully punctured that the first intimation is the trickling of blood or the chill feeling of the worm as it begins to land heavily on the skin.”
These worms, hirudinae or leeches, are remotely related to earthworms with a quite similar internal structure, but highly specialized for an exclusive diet of warm blood which they take from any mammal that comes within reach. The blood-sucking species—not all species are this type—have triangular mouths with extremely sharp chitinous [of the same material as the shells of insects] teeth. The bite, so rapidly and skillfully administered that it seldom is felt, has been described as resembling the movement of a circular saw. Haemadipoa, the Ceylon species, described by Tennent, reportedly has five pairs of keen eyes and as many as 100 body segments. All the blood eaters have two suckers, one on the front and one on the rear of the body, by means of which they cling to their victims. All have the ability to contract the body to a plump, pear-like form and extend it to a wormlike form.
The green worms are as much of a terror as ever to travelers in Asian jungles. A species akin to that of the Kandy defense armies guards the thickly forested approaches to the Himalayas in Nepal It is described by Dr. George Moore, chief of the United Nations medical mission to Nepal:
“These leeches, little segmented worms about two inches long, were particularly provoking and troublesome until our team reached an altitude of 14,000 feet. Along the trails, on each ledge leading to the pass, leeches would lie in the shade and moisture until nearby footsteps vibrated their sense organs. Then they would inch from rock to rock at incredible speed, traveling their entire length toward the sound in about a second and then stopping to perch on the rock with their front ends sticking in the air. Immediately they touched a human body they would fasten themselves to it and search for warm skin. Often they would drop from trees. They could penetrate eyelets of shoes and pores of socks by lengthening the entire body. Huge clots of blood would be found on the skin where the greedy worms had fattened themselves to a fragile bursting point.”
The leech encountered by Dr. Moore’s mission long has been notorious as one of the most vicious animals on earth. It has made some areas of the Himalayan foothills uninhabitable. Travelers and hunters are terrified by it. It exists in incalculable numbers and attacks at least all warm-blooded animals. Horses are driven wild. Cattle and dogs sometimes are blinded and the young and sick killed. It has been known to attack the deadly cobra, striking at the eyes and blinding the reptiles. The respect in which it is held in indicated by its zoological name montivindictus, or “defender of the mountains.”
Its stronghold is the highly humid zone at the foot of the Himalayas between altitudes of 4,000 and 6,000 feet. Its period of activity occurs during the rainy season, when it can move freely without danger of drying out. At other times it seldom is seen except at night when grass and bushes are wet with dew.
The worm lurks at the bases of plants. It is stirred to action by the slightest movement of stems or vibration caused by footfalls. An inherent impulse, or geotropism, then impels it to climb any plant or vertical object with which it happens to be in contact. At the top it extends its body horizontally and probes the surroundings.