catch before they reach the water, upon their backs, so that they cannot
escape, after which he feasts at his leisure.

Two children, a girl and a boy, were playing together near a small
Indian village, in the vicinity of a thicket, when a large panther came
out of the woods and made toward them, playfully bounding along, his
head down, and his back arched after the fashion of the cat when she
chooses to put on some of her mischievous airs. He came up to the boy,
and began to play with him, as the latter at first supposed, although he
was convinced of his mistake when the panther hit him so severe a blow
on his head as to draw blood. Then the little girl, who had a small
stick in her hand, struck the panther; and matters were going on in this
way, when some Indians in the village, hearing the cries of the
children, came to their rescue.

A gentleman who was formerly in the British service at Ceylon, relates
the following anecdote: "I was at Jaffna, at the northern extremity of
the island of Ceylon, in the beginning of the year 1819, when, one
morning, my servant called me an hour or two before my usual time, with
'Master, master! people sent for master's dogs; leopard in the town!' My
gun chanced not to be put together; and while my servant was adjusting
it, the collector and two medical men, who had recently arrived, in
consequence of the cholera morbus having just then reached Ceylon from
the continent, came to my door, the former armed with a fowling-piece,
and the two latter with remarkably blunt hog spears. They insisted upon
setting off without waiting for my gun, a proceeding not much to my
taste. The leopard had taken refuge in a hut, the roof of which, like
those of Ceylon huts in general, spread to the ground like an umbrella;
the only aperture into it was a small door about four feet high. The
collector wanted to get the leopard out at once. I begged to wait for my