sensitive to tickling; and that it will relax its hold of a man, if he
can only contrive to reach and rub with his hand the softer parts of its
under side.[1] An incident indicative of some reality in this piece of
folklore, once came under my own observation. One morning, about
sunrise, when riding across the sandy plain near the old fort of
Moeletivoe, we came suddenly upon a crocodile asleep under some bushes
of the Buffalo-thorn, several hundred yards from the water. The terror
of the poor wretch was extreme, when it awoke and found itself
discovered and completely surrounded. It was a hideous creature, upwards
of ten feet long, and evidently of prodigious strength, had it been in a
condition to exert it, but consternation completely paralysed it. It
started to its feet and turned round in a circle hissing and clanking
its bony jaws, with its ugly green eye intently fixed upon us. On being
struck with a stick, it lay perfectly quiet and apparently dead.
Presently it looked cunningly round, and made a rush towards the water,
but on a second blow it lay again motionless and feigning death. We
tried to rouse it, but without effect, pulled its tail, slapped its
back, struck its hard scales, and teased it in every way, but all in
vain; nothing would induce it to move till accidentally my son, then a
boy of twelve years old, tickled it gently under the arm, and in an
instant it drew the limb close to its side and turned to avoid a
repetition of the experiment. Again it was touched under the other arm,
and the same emotion was exhibited, the great monster twisting about
like an infant to avoid being tickled. The scene was highly amusing, but
the sun was rising high, and we pursued our journey to Moeletivoe,
leaving the crocodile to make its way to the adjoining lake.
[Footnote 1: A native gentleman who resided for a long time at Caltura
tells me that in the rivers which flow into the sea, both there and at
Bentotte, crocodiles are frequently caught in corrals, formed of stakes
driven into the ground in shallow water, and so constructed, that when
the reptile enters to seize the bait placed within, the aperture closes
behind and secures him. A professional "crocodile charmer" then enters
muttering a spell, and with one end of a stick pats the creature gently
on the head for a time. The operator then boldly mounts astride upon its
shoulders, and continues to soothe it with his one hand, whilst with the
other he contrives to pass a rope under its body, by which it is at last
dragged on shore. This story serves to corroborate the narrative of Mr.
Waterton and his alligator.]
The Singhalese believe that the crocodile can only move swiftly on sand
or smooth clay, its feet being too tender to tread firmly on hard or
stony ground. In the dry season, when the watercourses begin to fail and
the tanks become exhausted, the marsh-crocodiles have occasionally been
encountered in the jungle, wandering in search of water. During a severe
drought in 1844, they deserted a tank near Kornegalle and traversed the
town during the night, on their way to another reservoir in the suburb;
two or three fell into the wells; others in their trepidation, laid eggs
in the street, and some were found entangled in garden fences and
killed.
Generally, however, during the extreme drought, when unable to procure
their ordinary food from the drying up of the watercourses, they bury
themselves in the mud, and remain in a state of torpor till released by
the recurrence of rains.[1] At Arne-tivoe, in the eastern province,
whilst riding across the parched bed of the tank, I was shown the
recess, still bearing the form and impress of a crocodile, out of which
the animal had been seen to emerge the day before. A story was also
related to me of an officer attached to the department of the
Surveyor-General, who, having pitched his tent in a similar position,
was disturbed during the night by feeling a movement of the earth below
his bed, from which on the following day a crocodile emerged, making its
appearance from beneath the matting.[2]
[Footnote 1: HERODOTUS records the observations of the Egyptians that
the crocodile of the Nile abstains from food during the four winter
months.--_Euterpe_, lviii.]
[Footnote 2: HUMBOLDT relates a similar story as occurring at Calabazo,
in Venezuela.--_Personal Narrative_, c, xvi.]
The fresh water species that inhabits the tanks is essentially cowardly
in it instincts, and hastens to conceal itself on the appearance of man.
A gentleman (who told me the circumstance), when riding in the jungle,
overtook a crocodile, evidently roaming in search of water. It fled to a
shallow pool almost dried by the sun, and, thrusting its head into the
mud till it covered up its eyes, remained unmoved in profound confidence
of perfect concealment. In 1833, during the progress of the Pearl
Fishery, Sir Robert Wilmot Horton employed men to drag for crocodiles in
a pond which was infested by them in the immediate vicinity of Aripo.
The pool was about fifty yards in length, by ten or twelve wide,
shallowing gradually to the edge, and not exceeding four or five feet at
the deepest part. As the party approached the bund, from twenty to
thirty reptiles, which had been basking in the sun, rose and fled to the
water. A net, specially weighted so as to sink its lower edge to the
bottom, was then stretched from bank to bank and swept to the further
end of the pond, followed by a line of men with poles to drive the
crocodiles forward: so complete was the arrangement, that no individual
could have evaded the net, yet, to the astonishment of the Governor's
party, not one was to be found when it was drawn on shore, and no means
of escape for them was apparent or possible except by their descending
into the mud at the bottom of the pond.
The lagoon of Batticaloa, and indeed all the still waters of this
district, are remarkable for the numbers and prodigious size of the
crocodiles which infest them. Their teeth are sometimes so large that
the natives mount them with silver lids and use them for boxes to carry
the powdered chunam, which they chew with the betel leaf. During one of
my visits to the lake a crocodile was caught within a few yards of the
government agent's residence, a hook having been laid the night before,
baited with the entrails of a goat; and made fast, in the native
fashion, by a bunch of fine cords, which the creature cannot gnaw
asunder as it would a solid rope, since they sink into the spaces
between its teeth. The one taken was small, being only about ten or
eleven feet in length, whereas they are frequently killed from fifteen
to nineteen feet long. As long as it was in the water, it made strong
resistance to being hauled on shore, carrying the canoe out into the
deep channel, and occasionally raising its head above the surface, and
clashing its jaws together menacingly. This action has a horrid sound,
as the crocodile has no fleshy lips; and it brings its teeth and the
bones of the mouth together with a loud crash, like the clank of two
pieces of hard wood. After playing it a little, the boatmen drew it to
land, and when once fairly on the shore all courage and energy seemed
utterly to desert it. It tried once or twice to regain the water, but at
last lay motionless and perfectly helpless on the sand. It was no easy
matter to kill it; a rifle ball sent diagonally through its breast had
little or no effect, and even when the shot had been repeated more than
once, it was as full of life as ever.[1] It feigned death and lay
motionless, with its eye closed; but, on being pricked with a spear, it
suddenly regained all its activity. It was at last finished by a
harpoon, and then opened. Its maw contained several small tortoises, and
a quantity of broken bricks and gravel, taken medicinally, to promote
digestion.
[Footnote 1: A remarkable instance of the vitality of the common
crocodile, _C. biporcatus_, was related to me by a gentleman at Galle:
he had caught on a baited hook an unusually large one, which his coolies
disembowelled, the aperture in the stomach being left expanded by a
stick placed across it. On returning in the afternoon with a view to
secure the head, they found that the creature had crawled for some
distance, and made its escape into the water.
"A curious incident occurred some years ago on the Maguruganga, a stream
which flows through the Pasdun Corle, to join the Bentolle river. A man
was fishing seated on the branch of a tree that overhung the water; and
to shelter himself from the drizzling rain, he covered his head and
shoulder with a bag folded into a shape common with the natives. While
in this attitude, a leopard sprang upon him from the jungle, but missing
its aim, seized the bag and not the man, and fell with it into the
river. Here a crocodile, which had been eyeing the angler is despair,
seized the leopard as it fell, and sunk with it to the
bottom."--_Letter_ from GOONE-RATNE Modliar, interpreter of the Supreme
Court, 10th Jany., 1861.]
During our journeys we had numerous opportunities of observing the
habits of these hideous creatures, and I am far from considering them so
formidable as they are usually supposed to be. They are evidently not
wantonly destructive; they act only under the influence of hunger, and
even then their motions on land are awkward and ungainly, their action
timid, and their whole demeanour devoid of the sagacity and courage
which characterise other animals of prey.
TESTUDINATA. _Tortoise_.--Land tortoises are numerous, but present no
remarkable features beyond the beautiful marking of the starred
variety[1], which is common in the north-western province around Putlam
and Chilaw, and is distinguished by the bright yellow rays which
diversify the deep black of its dorsal shield. From one of these which
was kept in my garden I took a number of flat ticks (_Ixodes_), which
adhere to its fleshy neck in such a position as to baffle any attempt of
the animal itself to remove them; but as they are exposed to constant
danger of being crushed against the plastron during the protrusion and
retraction of the head, each is covered with a horny case almost as
resistant as the carapace of the tortoise itself. Such an adaptation of
structure is scarcely less striking than that of the parasites found on
the spotted lizard of Berar by Dr. Hooker, each of which presents the
distinct colour of the scale to which it adheres.[2]
[Footnote 1: Testudo stellata.]
[Illustration: THE THREE-RIDGED TORTOISE (EMYS TRIJUGA)]
[Footnote 2: HOOKER'S _Himalayan Journals_, vol. i. p. 37.]
The marshes and pools of the interior are frequented by _terrapins_[1],
which the natives are in the habit of keeping alive in wells under the
conviction that they clear them of impurities. These fresh-water
tortoises, the greater number of which are included in the genus _Emys_
of naturalists, are distinguished by having their toes webbed. Their
shell is less convex than that of their congeners on land (but more
elevated than that of the sea-turtle); and it has been observed that the
more rounded the shell, the nearer does the terrapin approach to the
land-tortoise both in its habits and in the choice of its food. Some of
them live upon animal as well as vegetable food, and those which subsist
exclusively on the former, are noted as having the flattest shells.
[Footnote 1: _Cryptopus granum_, SCHÖPF; DR. KELAART, in his _Prodromus_
(p. 179), refers this to the common Indian species, _C. punctata_; but
it is distinct. It is generally distributed in the lower parts of
Ceylon, in lakes and tanks. It is the one usually put into wells to act
the part of a scavenger. By the Singhalese it is named _Kiri-ibba_.]
The terrapins lay about thirty eggs in the course of several weeks, and
these are round, with a calcareous shell. They thrive in captivity,
provided that they have a regular supply of water and of meat, cut into
small pieces and thrown to them. The tropical species, if transferred to
a colder climate, should have arrangements made for enabling them to
hybernate during the winter: they will die in a very short time if
exposed to a temperature below the freezing point.[1]
[Footnote 1: Of the _Emys trijuga_, the fresh water tortoise figured on
preceding page, the technical characteristics are;--vertical plates
lozenge-shaped; shell convex and oval; with three more or less distinct
longitudinal keels; shields corrugated; with areola situated in the
upper posterior corner. Shell brown, with the areolæ and the keels
yellowish; head brown, with a yellow streak over each eye.]
The edible turtle[1] is found on all the coasts of the island, and sells
for a few shillings or a few pence, according to its size and abundance
at the moment. A very repulsive spectacle is exhibited in the markets of
Jaffna by the mode in which the flesh of the turtle is sold piece-meal,
whilst the animal is still alive, by the families of the Tamil
fishermen. The creatures are to be seen in the market-place undergoing
this frightful mutilation; the plastron and its integuments having been
previously removed, and the animal thrown on its back, so as to display
all the motions of the heart, viscera, and lungs. A broad knife, from
twelve to eighteen inches in length, is first inserted at the left side,
and the women, who are generally the operators, introduce one hand to
scoop out the blood, which oozes slowly. The blade is next passed round,
till the lower shell is detached and placed on one side, and the
internal organs exposed in full action. A customer, as he applies, is
served with any part selected, which is cut off as ordered, and sold by
weight. Each of the fins is thus successively removed, with portions of
the fat and flesh, the turtle showing, by its contortions, that each act
of severance is productive of agony. In this state it lies for hours,
writhing in the sun, the heart[2] and head being usually the last pieces
selected, and till the latter is cut off the snapping of the mouth, and
the opening and closing of the eyes, show that life is still inherent,
even when the shell has been nearly divested of its contents.
[Footnote 1: Chelonia virgata, _Schweig_.]
[Footnote 2: ARISTOTLE was aware of the fact that the turtle will live
after the removal of the heart.--_De Vita et Morte_, ch. ii.]
At certain seasons the flesh of turtle on the south-western coast of
Ceylon is avoided as poisonous, and some lamentable instances are
recorded of deaths ascribed to its use. At Pantura, to the south of
Colombo, twenty-eight persons who had partaken of turtle in October,
1840, were immediately seized with sickness, after which coma
supervened, and eighteen died during the night. Those who survived said
there was nothing unusual in the appearance of the flesh except that it
was fatter than ordinary. Other similarly fatal occurrences have been
attributed to turtle curry; but as they have never been proved to
proceed exclusively from that source, there is room for believing that
the poison may have been contained in some other ingredient.
In the Gulf of Manaar turtle is frequently found of such a size as to
measure between four and five feet in length; and on one occasion, in
riding along the sea-shore north of Putlam, I saw a man in charge of
some sheep, resting under the shade of a turtle shell, which he had
erected on sticks to protect him from the sun--almost verifying the
statement of Ælian, that in the seas off Ceylon there are tortoises so
large that several persons may find ample shelter beneath a single
shell.[1]
[Footnote 1: [Greek: "Tiktontai de ara en tautê tê thalattê, kai
chelônai megistai, ônper oun ta elytra orophoi ginontai kai gar esti kai
pentekaideka pêchôn en chelôneion, ôs hypoikein ouk oligous, kai tous
hêlious pyrodestatous apostegei, kai skian asmenois parechei."]--Lib.
xvi. c. 17. Ælian copied this statement literatim from MEGASTHESES,
_Indica Frag._ lix. 31. May not Megasthenes have referred to some
tradition connected with the gigantic fossilised species discovered on
the Sewalik Hills, the remains of which are now in the Museum at the
East India House?]
The hawksbill-turtle[1], which supplies the tortoise-shell of commerce,
was at former times taken in great numbers in the vicinity of
Hambangtotte during the season when they came to deposit their eggs.
This gave rise to the trade in tortoise-shell at Point de Galle, where
it is still manufactured into articles of ornament by the Moors; but the
shell they employ is almost entirely imported from the Maldives.
[Footnote 1: Caretta imbricata, _Linn._]
If taken from the animal after death and decomposition, the colour of
the shell becomes clouded and milky, and hence the cruel expedient is
resorted to of seizing the turtles as they repair to the shore to
deposit their eggs, and suspending them over fires till heat makes the
plates on the dorsal shields start from the bone of the carapace, after
which the creature is permitted to escape to the water.[1] In
illustration of the resistless influence of instinct at the period of
breeding, it may be mentioned that the identical tortoise is believed to
return again and again to the same spot, notwithstanding that at each
visit she may have to undergo a repetition of this torture. In the year
1826, a hawksbill turtle was taken near Hambangtotte, which bore a ring
attached to one of its fins that had been placed there by a Dutch
officer thirty years before, with a view to establish the fact of these
recurring visits to the same beach.[2]
[Footnote 1: At Celebes, whence the finest tortoise-shell is exported to
China, the natives kill the turtle by blows on the head, and immerse the
shell in boiling water to detach the plates. Dry heat is only resorted
to by the unskilful, who frequently destroy the tortoise-shell in the
operation--_Journal Indian Archipel_. vol. iii. p. 227, 1849.]
[Footnote 2: BENNETT'S _Ceylon, &c._, c. xxxiv.]
An opportunity is afforded on the sea-shore of Ceylon for observing a
remarkable illustration of instinct in the turtle, when about to deposit
its eggs. As if conscious that if she went and returned by one and the
same line across the sandy beach, her hiding place would be discovered
at its farthest extremity, she resorts to the expedient of curving her
course, so as to regain the sea by a different track; and after
depositing the eggs, burying them about eighteen inches deep, she
carefully smoothes over the surface to render the precise spot
indiscernible. The Singhalese, aware of this device, sound her line of,
march with a rod till they come upon the concealed nest.
_Snakes_.--It is perhaps owing to the aversion excited by the ferocious
expression and unusual action of serpents, combined with an instinctive
dread of attack[1], that exaggerated ideas prevail both as to their
numbers in Ceylon, and the danger to be apprehended from encountering
them. The Singhalese profess to distinguish a great many kinds, of which
they say not more than one half have as yet been scientifically
identified[2]; but so cautiously do serpents make their appearance, that
the surprise of persons long resident is invariably expressed at the
rarity with which they are to be seen; and from my own journeys through
the jungle, often of from two to five hundred miles, I have frequently
returned without observing a single snake. Mr. Bennett, who resided much
in the south-east of the island, ascribes the rarity of serpents in the
jungle to the abundance of the wild peafowl, whose partiality to young
snakes renders them the chief destroyers of these reptiles. It is
likely, too, that they are killed by the jungle-cocks; for they are
frequently eaten by the common barn-door fowl in Ceylon. This is
rendered the more probable by the fact, that in those districts where
the extension of cultivation, and the visits of sportsmen, have reduced
the numbers of the jungle-cocks and pea-fowl, snakes have perceptibly
increased. The deer also are enemies of the snakes, and the natives who
have had opportunities of watching their encounters assert that they
have seen deer rush upon a serpent and crush it by leaping on it with
all its four feet. As to the venomous powers of snakes, DR. DAVY, whose
attention was carefully directed to the poisonous serpents of Ceylon[3],
came to the conclusion that but _four_, out of twenty species examined
by him, were venomous, and that of these only two (the _tic-polonga_[4]
and _cobra de capello_[5]) were capable of inflicting a wound likely to
be fatal to man. The third is the _carawala_[6], a brown snake of about
two feet in length; and for the fourth, of which only a few specimens
have been procured, the Singhalese have no name in their vernacular--a
proof that it is neither deadly nor abundant. But Dr. Davy's estimate of
the venom of the _carawala_ is below the truth, as cases have been
authenticated to me, in which death from its bite ensued within a few
days. The effect, however, is not uniformly fatal; a circumstance which
the natives explain by asserting that there are three varieties of the
carawala, named the _hil-la_, the _dunu_, and the _mal_-carawala; the
second being the largest and the most dreaded.
[Footnote 1: Genesis iii. 15.]
[Footnote 2: This is not likely to be true: in a very large collection
of snakes made in Ceylon by Mr. C.R. Butler, and recently examined by
Dr. Günther, of the British Museum, only a single-specimen proved to be
new.
There is, however, one venomous snake, of the existence of which I am
assured by a native correspondent in Ceylon, no mention has yet been
made by European naturalists. It is called M[=a]pil[=a] by the
Singhalese; it is described to me as being about four feet in length, of
the diameter of the little finger, and of a uniform dark brown colour.
It is said to be often seen in company with another snake called in
Singhalese _Lay Medilla_, a name which implies its deep red hue. The
latter is believed to be venomous. It would be well if some collector in
Ceylon would send home for examination the species which respectively
bear these names.]
[Footnote 3: See DAVY'S _Ceylon_, ch. xiv.]
[Footnote 4: Daboia elegans, _Daud._]
[Footnote 5: Naja tripudians, _Merr._]
[Footnote 6: Trigonocephalus hypnale, _Merr._]
In like manner, the _tic-polonga_, particularised by Dr. Davy, is said
to be but one out of seven varieties of that formidable reptile. The
word "tic" means literally the "spotted" polonga, from the superior
clearness of the markings on its scales. Another, the _nidi_, or
"sleeping" polonga, is so called from the fact that a person bitten by
it is soon prostrated by a lethargy from which he never awakes.[1] These
formidable serpents so infested the official residence of the District
Judge of Trincomalie in 1858, as to compel his family to abandon it. In
another instance, a friend of mine, going hastily to take a supply of
wafers from an open tin case which stood in his office, drew back his
hand, on finding the box occupied by a tic-polonga coiled within it.
During my residence in Ceylon, I never heard of the death of a European
which was caused by the bite of a snake; and in the returns of coroners'
inquests made officially to my department, such accidents to the natives
appear chiefly to have happened at night, when the animal, having been
surprised or trodden on, inflicted the wound in self-defence.[2] For
these reasons the Singhalese, when obliged to leave their houses in the
dark, carry a stick with a loose ring, the noise[3] of which as they
strike it on the ground is sufficient to warn the snakes to leave their
path.
[Footnote 1: The other varieties are the _getta, lay, alu, kunu,_ and
_nil-polongas._ I have heard of an eighth, the _palla-polonga_.
Amongst the numerous pieces of folk-lore in Ceylon in connexion with
snakes, is the belief that a deadly enmity subsists between the polonga
and the cobra de capello, and that the latter, which is naturally shy
and retiring, is provoked to conflicts by the audacity of its rival.
Hence the proverb applied to persons at enmity, that "they hate like the
polonga and cobra."