I once saw a Moorman, who was a fine powerful fellow and an excellent elephant-tracker, who had a narrow escape from a bear.

He was cutting bamboos with a catty or kind of bill-hook, when one of these animals descended from a tree just above him and immediately attacked him.

The man instinctively threw his left arm forward to receive the bear, who seized it in his mouth and bit the thumb completely off, lacerating the arm and wrist at the same time in a frightful manner.

With one blow of the bill-hook the Moorman cleft the bear's skull to the teeth, at the same time gashing his own arm to the bone by the force of the blow; and he never afterwards recovered the proper use of the limb.
The Ceylon bear feeds upon almost anything that offers; he eats honey, ants, fruit, roots, and flesh whenever he can procure it: his muscular power is enormous, and he exerts both teeth and claws in his attack.
They are very numerous in Ceylon, although they are seldom met with in any number, owing to their nocturnal habits, which attract them to their caves at break of day.
After strolling over the country for some miles, we came upon fresh elephant-tracks in high grass, which we immediately followed up.

In the course of half an hour, after tracking them for about two miles through open country, we entered a fine forest, in which the herd had retired; but our hopes of meeting them in this favourable ground were suddenly damped by arriving at a dense chenar jungle in the very heart of the forest.