ffering of the wild animals that numbers of
crocodiles and bears made their way into the town to drink at the wells.
The soil is prolific in the extreme; rice, cotton, and dry grain are
cultivated largely in the valley. Every cottage is surrounded by gardens
of coco-nuts, arecas, jak-fruit and coffee; the slopes, under tillage,
are covered with luxuriant vegetation, and, as far as the eye can reach
on every side, there are dense forests intersected by streams, in the
shade of which the deer and the elephant abound.

In 1847 arrangements were made for one of the great elephant hunts for
the supply of the Civil Engineer's Department, and the spot fixed on by
Mr. Morris, the Government officer who conducted the corral, was on the
banks of the Kimbul river, about fifteen miles from Kornegalle. The
country over which we rode to the scene of the approaching capture
showed traces of the recent drought, the fields lay to a great extent
untilled, owing to the want of water, and the tanks, almost reduced to
dryness, were covered with the leaves of the rose-coloured lotus.

Our cavalcade was as oriental as the scenery through which it moved; the
Governor and the officers of his staff and household formed a long
cortege, escorted by the native attendants, horse-keepers, and
foot-runners. The ladies were borne in palankins, and the younger
individuals of the party carried in chairs raised on poles, and covered
with cool green awnings made of the fresh leaves of the talipat palm.

After traversing the cultivated lands, the path led across open glades
of park-like verdure and beauty, and at last entered the great-forest
under the shade of ancient trees wreathed to their crowns with climbing
plants and festooned by natural garlands of convolvulus and orchids.
Here silence reigned, disturbed only by the murmuring hum of glittering
insects, or the shrill clamour of the plum-headed parroquet and the
flute-like calls of the golden oriole.

We crossed the broad sandy beds of two rivers over-arched by tall trees,
the most conspicuous of which is the Kombook[1], from the calcined bark
of which the natives extract a species of lime to be used with their
betel. And from the branches hung suspended over the water the gigantic
pods of the huge puswael bean[2], the sheath of which measures six feet
long by five or six inches broad.

[Footnote 1: _Pentaptera paniculata_.]

[Footnote 2: _Entada pursaetha_.]

On ascending the steep bank of the