We suffered at first, this day, much from the heat, while travelling along a narrow path cut through the dense jungle; and doubly delighted were we when we once more emerged into a partially open country, interspersed with clumps of trees and jungle, with hills, and a water-course, and a tank or small lake in the distance. We rode on till we came to a part of the water-course, at which our horses and Solon eagerly slaked their thirst. We did not disdain to drink also. While seated near the water, under the shade of a lofty wide-spreading kumbuk-tree, called by the Tamils maratha-maram, which extended its long branches far over the water, we saw from a jungle a hundred yards directly in front of us a noble buck step out, and, after throwing up his head and gazing with surprise at us, begin leisurely to graze where he stood. Nowell was for trying the range of his rifle on him, but I entreated him not to fire. "No, no," I exclaimed; "let him have a chance for his life. We might as well hit a poor fellow who was down in a boxing-match. Wait till we invade his territory. We shall find plenty of others to shoot." Directly afterwards, three or four peacocks, one of whom had a train of remarkable splendour, marched out on the green sward, and strutted up and down, certainly offering tempting marks. They were followed by a number of jungle fowl, whose plumage gleamed with metallic lustre, and who were so little fearful of man that they came within pistol-shot of where we sat, on the opposite bank of the stream. I had often seen pictures of our first parents in Paradise, surrounded by the animals of the field and the birds of the air, and here we had an exemplification of how true such pictures may be to nature as it was before sin entered into the world, and the brutes learned to dread man's cruelty and tyranny. We had directly after a further example of this. Happening to turn my head, I saw, not twenty yards behind the kumbuk-tree, what at first I thought was a log of wood under some bushes of a buffalo-thorn. I scarcely know what impulse made me approach it, as did the rest. Solon set up a loud bark, and instantly the seeming log shoved out four feet, and exhibited to our astonished eyes a hideous crocodile fully twelve feet long, and evidently of prodigious strength. Still more terrific did he look when he began to turn round in a circle, hissing and clanking his bony jaws, with his ugly green eye intently fixed on us. I felt a strong inclination to run away, for it seemed to me that he might make a rush and snap one of us up in a moment; but as Nowell and the natives stood their ground without fear, so did I, while Solon continued his barking, but at the same time kept wisely at a very respectful distance. The truth was, that the crocodile, suddenly aroused from his balmy slumbers, was far more frightened at us than we had cause to be at him, and was completely paralysed. Dango, knowing