They are expert trackers, but are not so skilled in the use of bows and arrows as savages usually are. Without any fixed place of residence, they wander over their beautiful country, always finding abundance to eat and drink, while the warm temperature renders any description of clothing superfluous. Upon another occasion, Mr Baker, in search of elephants, stumbles upon the ruins of Mahagam. As he is unsuccessful in finding any game, he gives us a short description of what remains of this ancient city, the first records of which date back to the year 286 B.C.
“We were among the ruins of ancient Mahagam. One of the ruined buildings had apparently rested upon seventy-two pillars. These were still erect, standing in six lines of twelve columns: every stone appeared to be about fourteen feet high by two feet square, and twenty-five feet apart. This building must therefore have formed an oblong of three hundred feet by one hundred and fifty. Many of the granite blocks were covered with rough carving; large flights of steps, now irregular from the inequality of the ground, were scattered here and there; and the general appearance of the ruins was similar to that of Pollanarua, but of smaller extent. The stone causeway which passed through the ruins was about two miles in length, being for the most part overgrown with low jungle and prickly cactus. I traversed the jungle for some distance, until arrested by the impervious nature of the bushes; but wherever I went the ground was strewed with squared stones and fallen brickwork overgrown with rank vegetation.”
At Pollanarua the ruins are still more interesting, and our author is evidently just becoming romantic when his reveries are disturbed in a manner inexcusable even in a sportsman. He is strolling through shady glades, and moralising over palaces which have crumbled into shapeless mounds of bricks: “Massive pillars, formed of a single stone some twelve feet high, stand in upright rows throughout the jungle here and there over an extent of miles of country. The buildings which they once supported have long since fallen, and the pillars now stand like tombstones over vanished magnificence.” While Mr Baker is wandering amid these ruins, meditating upon the touching mementoes by which he is surrounded, of a race long since passed away—
“Comes gliding in with lovely gleam,
Comes gliding in serene and slow,
Soft and silent as a dream,
A solitary doe.”
Instead of quoting Wordsworth, what does Mr Baker do? “I was within twenty yards of her before she was aware of my vicinity, and I bagged her by a shot with a double-barrelled gun. At the report of the gun a herd of about thirty deer which were concealed among the ruins rushed close by me, and I bagged another doe with the remaining barrel.” Really Mr Baker should be ashamed of bagging does right and left amid pillars which stand as tombstones over vanished magnificence; or, if it was the effect of an impulse irresistible at the moment, the placid reader should be spared the sudden shock which such an admission is likely to cause.
The most extensive ruins are strewn over all this country, those of Anarajapoura, comprising a surface of two hundred and fifty-six square miles, being the most celebrated. Numerous tanks attest the existence of a dense population, where now elephants and buffaloes roam unmolested. The tank at Doolana, a secluded spot, is a favourite resort for single or rogue elephants; and here Mr Baker and his brother find a notorious pair, and determine upon their destruction. The difficulty of following an elephant through the dense forests of Ceylon is so great that the assistance of native trackers is often absolutely necessary. In this instance, unfortunately, even the trackers mistake the direction, and our two sportsmen are standing hopelessly near a wall of impenetrable jungle, into which the elephants had been seen to retreat, wondering how they are ever to achieve the desired end, when, says Mr Baker,
“I suddenly heard a deep guttural sound in the thick rattan within four feet of me; in the same instant the whole tangled fabric bent over me, and, bursting asunder, showed the furious head of an elephant with uplifted trunk in full charge upon me.