of removing so great a
carcase is extreme. The noosing and securing them, therefore, takes
place in Ceylon within the area of the first enclosure into which they
enter, and the dexterity and daring displayed in this portion of the
work far surpasses that of merely attaching the rope through the
openings of the paling, as in an Indian keddah.

[Footnote 1: It is thus spelled by WOLF, in his _Life and Adventures_,
p. 144. _Corral_ is at the present day a household word in South
America, and especially in La Plata, to designate an _enclosure for
cattle_.]

One result of this change in the system is manifested in the increased
proportion of healthy elephants which are eventually secured and trained
out of the number originally enclosed. The reason of this is obvious:
under the old arrangements, months were consumed in the preparatory
steps of surrounding and driving in the herds, which at last arrived so
wasted by excitement and exhausted by privation that numbers died within
the corral itself, and still more died during the process of training.
But in later years the labour of months is reduced to weeks, and the
elephants are driven in fresh and full of vigour, so that comparatively
few are lost either in the enclosure or the stables. A conception of the
whole operation from commencement to end will be best conveyed by
describing the progress of an elephant corral as I witnessed it in 1847
in the great forest on the banks of the Alligator River, the Kimbul-oya,
in the district of Kornegalle, about thirty miles north-west of Kandy.

Kornegalle, or Kurunai-galle, was one of the ancient capitals of the
island, and the residence of its kings from A.D. 1319 to 1347.[1] The
dwelling-house of the principal civil officer in charge of the district
now occupies the site of the former palace, and the ground is strewn
with fragments of columns and carved stones, the remnants of the royal
buildings. The modern town consists of the bungalows of the European
officials, each surrounded with its own garden; two or three streets
inhabited by Dutch descendants and by Moors; and a native bazaar, with
the ordinary array of rice and curry stuffs and cooking chattees of
brass or burnt clay.

[Footnote 1: See SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT'S _Ceylon_, Vol. I. Pt. III. ch.
xii. p. 415.]

The charm of the village is the unusual beauty of its position. It rests
within the shade of an enormous rock of gneiss upwards of 600 feet in
height, nearly denude