From this point I left the road and struck down into the deep, grassy valley, crossing the river (the same which runs by the road higher up) and continuing along the side of the valley until I ascended the opposite range of hills.

Descending the precipitous side, I at length reached the paddy-fields in the low country, which were watered by Fort M'Donald river, and I looked up to the lofty range formed by the Hog's Back hill, now about three thousand feet above me.

Thus I had gained the opposite side of the Hog's Back, and, after a stiff pull lip the mountain, I returned home by a good path which I had formerly discovered along the course of the river through the forest to Newera Ellia, via Rest-and-be-Thankful Valley and the Barrack Plains, having made a circuit of about twenty-five miles and become thoroughly conversant with all the localities.

I immediately determined to have a path cut from the Badulla Road across the Hog's Back jungle to the patinas which looked down upon Fort M'Donald on the other side and, up which I had ascended on my return.

I judged the distance would not exceed two miles across, and I chose the point of junction with the Badulla road two miles and a half from my house.