dogs were all mute. Night came, and they had not returned. The next day
passed away, but without a sign of the missing dogs. I sent natives to
search the distant jungles and ravines in all directions. Three days
passed away, and I gave up all hope of them. We were sitting at dinner
one night, the fire was blazing cheerfully within, but the rain was
pouring without, the wind was howling in fitful gusts, and neither moon
nor stars relieved the pitchy darkness of the night, when the
conversation naturally turned to the lost dogs. What a night for the
poor brutes to be exposed to, roaming about the wet jungles without a
chance of return!

A sudden knock at the door arrested our attention; it opened. Two
natives stood there, dripping with wet and shivering with cold. One had
in his hand an elk's head, much gnawed; the other man, to my delight,
led the three lost dogs. They had run their elk down, and were found by
the side of a rocky river several miles distant--the two dogs asleep in
a cave, and the bitch was gnawing the remains of the half-consumed
animal. The two men who had found them were soon squatted before a
comfortable fire, with a good feed of curry and rice, and their skins
full of brandy.

Although the elk are so numerous at the Horton Plains, the sport at
length becomes monotonous from the very large proportion of the does.
The usual ratio in which they were killed was one buck to eight does. I
cannot at all account for this small proportion of bucks in this
particular spot. At Newera Ellia they are as two or three compared with
the does. The following extract of deaths, taken from my game-book
during three months of the year, will give a tolerably accurate idea of
the number killed: