The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon [40]
and pits. The Veddah watches at some solitary hole which still contains a little water, and to this the deer and every species of Ceylon game resort. Here his broad-headed arrow finds a supply. He dries the meat in long strips in the sun, and cleaning out some hollow tree, he packs away his savoury mass of sun-cooked flesh, and fills up the reservoir with wild honey; he then stops up the aperture with clay.
The last drop of water evaporates, the deer leave the country and migrate into other parts where mountains attract the rain and the pasturage is abundant. The Veddah burns the parched grass wherever he passes, and the country is soon a blackened surface--not a blade of pasture remains; but the act of burning ensures a sweet supply shortly after the rains commence, to which the game and the Veddahs will then return. In the meantime he follows the game to other districts, living in caves where they happen to abound, or making a temporary but with grass and sticks.
Every deer-path, every rock, every peculiar feature in the country, every pool of water, is known to these hunting Veddahs; they are consequently the best assistants in the world in elephant-hunting. They will run at top speed over hard ground upon an elephant's track which is barely discernible even to the practised eye of a white man. Fortunately, the number of these people is very trifling or the game would be scarce.
They hunt like the leopard; noiselessly stalking till within ten paces of their game, they let the broad arrow fly. At this distance who could miss? Should the game be simply wounded, it is quite enough; they never lose him, but hunt him up, like hounds upon a blood track.
Nevertheless, they are very bad shots with the bow and arrow, and they never can improve while they restrict their practice to such short ranges.
I have often tried them at a mark at sixty yards, and, although a very bad hand with a bow myself, I have invariably beaten them with their own weapons. These bows are six feet long, made of a light supple wood, and the strings are made of the fibrous bark of a tree greased and twisted. The arrows are three feet long, formed of the same wood as the bows. The blades are themselves seven inches of this length, and are flat, like the blade of a dinner-knife brought to a point. Three short feathers from the peacock's wing are roughly lashed to the other end of the arrow.
The Veddah in person is extremely ugly; short, but sinewy, his long uncombed locks fall to his waist, looking more like a horse's tail than human hair. He despises money, but is thankful for a knife, a hatchet, or a gaudy-coloured cloth, or brass pot for cooking.
The women are horribly ugly and are almost entirely naked. They have no matrimonial regulations, and the children are squalid and miserable. Still these people are perfectly happy, and would prefer their present wandering life to the most luxurious restraint. Speaking a language of their own, with habits akin to those of wild animals, they keep entirely apart from the Cingalese. They barter deer-horns and bees'-wax with the travelling Moormen pedlers in exchange for their trifling requirements. If they have food, they eat it; if they have none, they go without until by some chance they procure it. In the meantime they chew the bark of various trees, and search for berries, while they wend their way for many miles to some remembered store of deer's flesh and honey, laid by in a hollow tree.
The first time that I ever saw a Veddah was in the north of the country. A rogue elephant was bathing in a little pool of deep mud and water near the tank of Monampitya, about six miles from the 'Gunner's Coin.' This Veddah had killed a wild pig, and was smoking the flesh within a few yards of the spot, when he suddenly heard the elephant splashing in the water. My tent was pitched within a mile of the place, and he accordingly brought me the intelligence.
Upon arrival at the pool I found the elephant so deep in the mud that he could barely move. His hind-quarters were towards me; and the pool not
The last drop of water evaporates, the deer leave the country and migrate into other parts where mountains attract the rain and the pasturage is abundant. The Veddah burns the parched grass wherever he passes, and the country is soon a blackened surface--not a blade of pasture remains; but the act of burning ensures a sweet supply shortly after the rains commence, to which the game and the Veddahs will then return. In the meantime he follows the game to other districts, living in caves where they happen to abound, or making a temporary but with grass and sticks.
Every deer-path, every rock, every peculiar feature in the country, every pool of water, is known to these hunting Veddahs; they are consequently the best assistants in the world in elephant-hunting. They will run at top speed over hard ground upon an elephant's track which is barely discernible even to the practised eye of a white man. Fortunately, the number of these people is very trifling or the game would be scarce.
They hunt like the leopard; noiselessly stalking till within ten paces of their game, they let the broad arrow fly. At this distance who could miss? Should the game be simply wounded, it is quite enough; they never lose him, but hunt him up, like hounds upon a blood track.
Nevertheless, they are very bad shots with the bow and arrow, and they never can improve while they restrict their practice to such short ranges.
I have often tried them at a mark at sixty yards, and, although a very bad hand with a bow myself, I have invariably beaten them with their own weapons. These bows are six feet long, made of a light supple wood, and the strings are made of the fibrous bark of a tree greased and twisted. The arrows are three feet long, formed of the same wood as the bows. The blades are themselves seven inches of this length, and are flat, like the blade of a dinner-knife brought to a point. Three short feathers from the peacock's wing are roughly lashed to the other end of the arrow.
The Veddah in person is extremely ugly; short, but sinewy, his long uncombed locks fall to his waist, looking more like a horse's tail than human hair. He despises money, but is thankful for a knife, a hatchet, or a gaudy-coloured cloth, or brass pot for cooking.
The women are horribly ugly and are almost entirely naked. They have no matrimonial regulations, and the children are squalid and miserable. Still these people are perfectly happy, and would prefer their present wandering life to the most luxurious restraint. Speaking a language of their own, with habits akin to those of wild animals, they keep entirely apart from the Cingalese. They barter deer-horns and bees'-wax with the travelling Moormen pedlers in exchange for their trifling requirements. If they have food, they eat it; if they have none, they go without until by some chance they procure it. In the meantime they chew the bark of various trees, and search for berries, while they wend their way for many miles to some remembered store of deer's flesh and honey, laid by in a hollow tree.
The first time that I ever saw a Veddah was in the north of the country. A rogue elephant was bathing in a little pool of deep mud and water near the tank of Monampitya, about six miles from the 'Gunner's Coin.' This Veddah had killed a wild pig, and was smoking the flesh within a few yards of the spot, when he suddenly heard the elephant splashing in the water. My tent was pitched within a mile of the place, and he accordingly brought me the intelligence.
Upon arrival at the pool I found the elephant so deep in the mud that he could barely move. His hind-quarters were towards me; and the pool not