CHAPTER VI.
"Game Eyes" for Wild Sports--Enjoyments of Wild Life--Cruelty of Sports--Native Hunters--Moormen Traders--Their wretched Guns--Rifles and Smooth-bores--Heavy Balls and Heavy Metal--Beattie's Rifles--Balls and Patches--Experiments--The Double-groove--Power of Heavy Metal--Curious Shot at a Bull Elephant--African and Ceylon Elephants--Structure of Skull--Lack of Trophies--Boar-spears and Hunting-knives--"Bertram"-- A Boar Hunt--Fatal Cut.
In traveling through Ceylon, the remark is often made by the tourist that "he sees so little game." From the accounts generally written of its birds and beasts, a stranger would naturally expect to come upon them at every turn, instead of which it is a well-known fact that one hundred miles of the wildest country may be traversed without seeing a single head of game, and the uninitiated might become skeptical as to its existence.
This is accounted for by the immense proportion of forest and jungle, compared to the open country.

The nature of wild animals is to seek cover at sunrise, and to come forth at sunset; therefore it is not surprising that so few are casually seen by the passing traveler.
There is another reason, which would frequently apply even in an open country.

Unless the traveler is well accustomed to wild sports, he has not his "game eye" open in fact; he either passes animals without observing them, or they see him and retreat from view before he remarks them.
It is well known that the color of most animals is adapted by Nature to the general tint of the country which they inhabit.

Thus, having no contrast, the animal matches with surrounding objects, and is difficult to be distinguished.
It may appear ridiculous to say that an elephant is very difficult to be seen!--he would be plain enough certainly on the snow, or on a bright green meadow in England, where the contrasted colors would make him at once a striking object; but in a dense jungle his skin matches so completely with the dead sticks and dry leaves, and his legs compare so well with the surrounding tree-stems, that he is generally unperceived by a stranger, even when pointed out to him.

I have actually been taking aim at an elephant within seven or eight paces, when he has been perfectly unseen by a friend at my elbow, who was peering through the bushes in quest of him.
Quickness of eye is an indispensable quality in sportsmen, the possession of which constitutes one of their little vanities.