Once upon a time there lived in a village of Lanka a woman who had several sons, all of whom dwelt with her. One day the seven brothers went out into the forest to cut wood. The night fell, the evening meal of rice was prepared, but no sons came home to partake of it. Their mother wondered, but took no great heed, thinking that some accident had delayed them, until the next day men from a neighbouring village came and told her that her sons had been killed and eaten by wild beasts. But she being a covetous and greedy woman uttered no wail of sorrow for the lost children whom she had borne, but only cried out: “Ko Hattha Paroa! Where are the seven axes?” Oh, cruel! cruel! oh, heartless mother! whose sons were dead and she only mourned over the loss of the axes! So the Gods were wroth, and to punish her turned her into a bird, laying upon her this curse, that till the crack of doom, knowing no rest, she should flit through the darkness of the jungle, ever uttering her unhappy cry: “Where are the seven axes? Where are the seven axes?” The road itself is the only sign of man’s handiwork. The forms and colours of the jungle are often startlingly beautiful. Some of the trees remind one of home; others, roped together by graceful lianes, are a revelation—their branching, their foliage, and their flowers a new sensation. Mixed with them are feathering bamboos, barbarously gorgeous crotons and poinsettias, and here and there an orchid, peering out of a cranny in a rock. From a great picturesque stone by the roadside I brought back two deliciously scented odontoglossums which flourished for years at Batsford. All of a sudden, as we drove along, we were aware of a large company of monkeys, some thirty or forty of them, of all sizes and ages, running by the side of the road, just inside the thicket. They were led by an old and venerable ape, very grey, with white whiskers, the image of a Hyde Park preacher—had he only worn a shabby black coat, shiny in greasy patches and at the elbows, he would have acted the part to perfection. He was a dictatorial old gentleman, whose word was a law unto his people. I say “word,” for that he had some means of issuing his commands to them was certain; that they understood him and obeyed his orders was equally certain. Sometimes he led the way, sometimes he dropped back and gathered in stragglers. He was apparently much agitated, though we could not have been the cause, for he made no attempt to avoid us, but led his troop parallel to our carriage. After running like that for three or four hundred yards, he gave the word of command, and the whole troop crossed the road in front of us. We stopped the carriage to see what happened. After, perhaps, a hundred more yards, the monkeys disappeared into the jungle on the other side.