[123] Another enormous mass of gneiss is called the Kuruminiagalla, or the Beetle-rock, from its resemblance in shape to the back of that insect, and hence is said to have been derived the name of the town, _Kuruna-galle_ or Korne-galle. [124] FORBES quotes a Tamil conveyance of land, the purchaser of which is to “possess and enjoy it as long as the sun and the moon, the earth and its vegetables, the mountains and the River Cauvery exist.” (_Oriental Memoirs_, vol. ii. chap. ii.) It will not fail to be observed, that the same figure was employed in Hebrew literature as a type of duration—“They shall fear thee, _so long as the sun and moon endure_; throughout all generations.” (Psalm lxxii. 5, 17.) [125] _Pentaptera paniculata._ [126] _Entada pursætha._ [127] Fire, the sound of a horn, and the grunting of a boar are the three things which the Greeks, in the middle ages, believed the elephant specially to dislike: Πῦρ δὲ πτοεῖται καὶ κριὸν κερασφόρον, Καὶ τῶν μονιῶν τὴν βοὴν τὴν ἀθρόαν. PHILE, _Expositio de Elephante_, 1. 177. [128] The other elephant, a fine tusker, which belonged to Dehigam Raté-mahat-meya, continued in extreme excitement throughout all the subsequent operations of the capture, and at last, after attempting to break its way into the corral, shaking the bars with its forehead and tusks, it went off in a state of frenzy into the jungle. A few days after the Aratchy went in search of it with a female decoy, and watching its approach, sprang fairly on the infuriated beast, with a pair of sharp hooks in his hands, which he pressed into tender parts in front of the shoulder, and thus held the elephant firmly till chains were passed over its legs, and it permitted itself to be led quietly away. [129] In some of the elephant hunts conducted in the southern provinces of Ceylon by the earlier British Governors, as many as 170 and 200 elephants were secured in a single corral, of which a portion only were taken out for the public service, and the rest shot, the motive being to rid the neighbourhood of them, and thus protect the crops from destruction. On the occasion here described, the object being to secure only as many as were required for the Government stud, it was not sought to entrap more than could conveniently be attended to and trained after capture. [130] This elephant is since dead; she grew infirm and diseased, and died at Colombo in 1848. Her skeleton is now in the Museum of the Natural History Society at Belfast.