ater and swam across the stream; here be carefully hunted the edge
for several hundred yards down the river, but, finding nothing, he
returned to the jungle at the point from which the river flowed. Here
he again took to water, and, swimming back to the bank from which he
had at first started, he landed and made a vain cast down the hollow.
Back he returned after his fruitless search, and once more he took to
water. I began to despair of the possibility of his finding; but the
true old bound was now swimming steadily down the stream, crossing and
recrossing from either bank, and still pursuing his course down the
river. At length he neared the spot where I knew that the elk had
landed, and we eagerly watched to see if he would pass the scent, as he
was now several yards from the bank. He was nearly abreast of the
spot, when he turned sharp in and landed in the exact place; his deep
and joyous note rung across the patinas, and away went the gallant old
hound in full cry upon the scent, while I could not help shouting,
"Hurrah for old Bluebeard!" In a few minutes he was by the side of the
dead elk--a specimen of a true hound, who certainly had exhibited a
large share of "reason."

CHAPTER X.

Wild Fruits--Ingredients for a "Soupe Maigre"--Orchidaceous
Plants--Wild Nutmegs--Native Oils--Cinnamon--Primeval Forests--Valuable
Woods--The Mahawelli River--Variety of Palms--Cocoa-nut
Toddy--Arrack--Cocoa-nut Oil--Cocoa-nut-planting--The Talipot Palm--The
Areca Palm--Betel Chewing--Sago Nuts--Varicty of Bees--Waste of
Beeswax--Edible Fungi--Narcotic Puff-ball--Intoxicating Drugs--Poisoned
Cakes--The "Sack Tree"--No Gum Trees of Value in Ceylon.

Among the inexperienced there is a prevalent idea connected with
tropical forests and jungles that they teem with wild fruits, which
Nature is supposed to produce spontaneously. Nothing can be more
erroneous than such an opinion; even edible berries are scantily
supplied by the wild shrubs and trees, and these, in lieu of others of
superior quality, are sometimes dignified by the name of fruit.

The guava and the katumbille are certainly very numerous throughout the
Ouva district; the latter being a dark red, rough-skinned kind of plum,
the size of a greengage, but free from stone. It grows upon a thorny
bush about fifteen feet high; but the fruit is too acid to please most
palates; the extreme thirst produced by a day's shooting in a burning
sun makes it refreshing when p