During the heat of the next day I turned aside to a shady green lane. A mile along this quiet pathway I was tempted to rest myself at the mouth of a dark-looking cave, by the side of a running stream of beautiful water. Tying my pony to a bush, I entered at the low archway, and found myself at once in utter darkness; but after a short time I began to distinguish objects, and then saw, close to me, one whom I should have least looked for in that strange, desolate spot. It was a Chinese, tail and all. My first idea was, as I looked at the figure through the dim light of the cave, that it was nothing more than a large China jar, or, perhaps a huge tea-chest, left there by some traveler; but, when the great, round face relaxed into a grin, and the little pea-like eyes winked, and the tail moved, and the thick lips uttered broken English, I took a proper view of the matter, and wished my cavern acquaintance "good-morning." I soon gathered the occupation of See Chee in this strange place; the cave we were then in was one of the many in that neighborhood, in which a particular kind of swallow builds the edible nests so highly prized by the Chinese and Japanese for conversion into soups, stews, and, for aught we know, into tarts. The Chinaman told me, what I was scarcely prepared to learn, that he rented from the Ceylon government the privilege to seek these birds' nests in this district, for which he paid the yearly sum of one hundred dollars, or seven pounds, ten shillings. Procuring a _chule_, or native torch, the Chinese nest-hunter showed me long ledges of shelving rock at the top of the cavern, whereon whole legions of curious little gummy-like excrescences were suspended; some were perfect nests, others were in course of formation, and these latter I learned were the most valued; those which had had the young birds reared in them being indifferently thought of, and were only bought by the lower orders of soup-makers. Having rested myself and pony, I once more pushed on for Ratnapoora, where I arrived, heated, jaded, and dusty, by high noon.