been undisturbed, and were consequently less shy; while now, on
the report of a gun, all the wild elephants within hearing, impelled
by an intelligence bought by experience, rush for the depths of the
jungle, which is quite inaccessible to human beings. They are mostly
magnificent and wary creatures. No white ones are ever seen here,
though they are so abundant in Siam. The elephants are measured, in
Ceylon, at the shoulders, and a full-grown male stands usually about
nine feet in height at this point, rather under than over. The largest
elephants on the island are said to haunt the country about the
ancient ruins of Pollanarua, where there are some almost impassable
forests. The fever-haunted jungles have no terrors for these huge
creatures, which seemingly enjoy entire immunity from all the ills
attendant upon such surroundings. In its native wilds, no one ever saw
an elephant ill from natural causes. When death threatens them from
old age or the wounds of the huntsmen, they retire and hide
themselves, to die.

The charms of this island were well known in past ages. It is no new
discovery of our day, as the earliest writers celebrated the pearls
and gems of "Taprobane," and ornaments composed of its precious stones
decked Asiatic queens of beauty twice ten hundred years ago. Ancient
thrones were beautified by its sparkling sapphires, and the products
of its spice-fields rendered fragrant the fires which burned upon the
altars of pagan gods. The Greeks called it the "land of the hyacinth
and the ruby." Primitive nomenclature is not only poetically
descriptive, but is nearly always appropriate.

The island is very ancient in its historical relations. Its most
famous capital is supposed to have been in its prime five or six
hundred years before the Christian era, while some of its crumbling
monuments belong to a much earlier age. It is confidently believed by
many students of history to be the Ophir of the Hebrews; and the fact
that it still abounds in rubies, sapphires, amethysts, garnets, and
other precious stones, seems, in a degree, to corroborate this
supposition. An intelligent estimate as to the aggregate value of the
gems exported from Ceylon during the long past places it at so
enormous a figure that we decline to give it in this connection,
though fully realizing that the yield has been going on
uninterruptedly for a period of two or three thousand years. But aside
from this very attractive feature, it is, as