CHAPTER VIII.
Beat-hounds for Elk-hunting--Smut--Killbuck--The Horton Plains--A Second Soyer--The Find--The Buck at Bay--The Bay--The Death--Return of Lost Dogs--Comparative Speed of Deer--Veddah Ripped by a Boar--A Melee--Buck at Black Pool--Old Smut's Ruse--Margosse Oil.
The foregoing description of sporting incidents closed my first visit to Ceylon.

I had arrived in the island to make a tour of the country and to enjoy its sports; this I had accomplished by a residence of twelve months, the whole of which had been occupied in wandering from place to place.

I now returned to England; but the Fates had traced ANOTHER road for me, and after a short stay in the old country I again started for Ceylon, and became a resident at Newera Ellia.
Making use of the experience that I had gained in wild sports, I came out well armed, according to my own ideas of weapons for the chase.

I had ordered four double-barrelled rifles of No.

10 bore to be made to my own pattern; my hunting-knives and boarspear heads I had made to my own design by Paget of Piccadilly, who turned out the perfection of steel; and I arrived in Ceylon with a pack of fine foxhounds and a favourite greyhound of wonderful speed and strength, 'Bran,' who, though full of years, is still alive.
The usual drawbacks and discomforts attendant upon a new settlement having been overcome, Newera Ellia forms a delightful place of residence.