Presently, upon turning a corner of the road, I saw a Malabar boy of about sixteen years of age, squatted shivering by the roadside.
His only covering being a scanty cloth round his loins, I told him to get up and go on or he would be starved with cold.

He said something in reply, which I could not understand, and repeating my first warning, I rode on.

It was only two miles to my house, but upon arrival I could not help thinking that the boy must be ill, and having watched the gate for some time to see if he passed by, I determined to send for him.
Accordingly, I started off a couple of men with orders to carry him up if he were sick.
They returned in little more than an hour, but the poor boy was dead!--sitting crouched in the same position in which I had seen him.
He must have died of cold and starvation; he was a mere skeleton.
I sent men to the spot, and had him buried by the roadside, and a few days after I rode down to see where they had laid him.
A quantity of fresh-turned earth lay scattered about, mingled with fragments of rags.

Bones much gnawed lay here and there on the road, and a putrid skull rolled from a shapeless hole among a confused and horrible heap.

The leopards had scratched him up and devoured him; their footprints were still fresh upon the damp ground.
Both leopards and chetahs are frequently caught at Newera Ellia.