a
melancholy procession. The pack was disabled for weeks, as the two
leading hounds, Merriman and Ploughboy, were severely injured.

Poor old Smut lingered for a few days and died. Thus closed his glorious
career of sport, and he left a fame behind him which will never be
forgotten. His son, who is now twelve months old, is the facsimile of
his sire, and often recalls the recollection of the old dog. I hope he
may turn out as good.* (*Killed four months afterwards by a buck elk.)

Misfortunes never come alone. A few weeks after Smut's death, Lizzie,
an excellent bitch, was killed by a leopard, who wounded Merriman in the
throat, but he being a powerful dog, beat him off and escaped. Merriman
had not long recovered from his wound, when he came to a lamentable and
diabolical end.

On December 24, 1852, we found a buck in the jungles by the Badulla
road. The dead nillho so retarded the pack that the elk got a long start
of the dogs; and stealing down a stream he broke cover, crossed the
Badulla road, ascended the opposite hills, and took to the jungle
before a single hound appeared upon the patina. At length Merriman came
bounding along upon his track, full a hundred yards in advance of the
pack. In a few minutes every dog had disappeared in the opposite jungle
on the elk's path.

This was a part of the country where we invariably lost the dogs, as
they took away across a vast jungle country towards a large and rapid
river situated among stupendous precipices. I had often endeavoured to
find the dogs in this part, but to no purpose; this day, however, I was
determined to follow them if possible. I made a circuit of about
twenty miles down into the low countries, and again ascending through
precipitous jungles, I returned home in the evening, having only
recovered two dogs, which I found on the other side of the range of
mountains, over which the buck had passed. No pen can describe the
beauty of the scenery in this part of the country, but it is the most
frightful locality for hunting that can be imagined. The high lands
suddenly cease; a splendid panoramic view of the low country extends
for thirty miles before the eye; but to descend to this, precipices of
immense depth must be passed; and from a deep gorge in the mountain, the
large river, after a succession of falls, leaps in one vast plunge of
three hundred feet into the abyss below. This is a stupendous cataract,
about a mile below the foot of which is the villag