| Plus |
|
|||
|
Those beautiful
Wilpattu days Hurray!
The Wilpattu wildlife park has been re-opened at long last. Wilpattu was
our favourite jungle hideout. I loved Wilpattu because it gave you
the feel of real jungle. Unlike other game parks, Wilpattu had a
different atmosphere with towering trees, large expanses of water
and wide, open spaces of parkland. Leopards roamed and the eerie
sound of the ullema pierced the silence of the night, owls perched
wide-eyed on bare branches and snakes and pythons slithered their
way among the grassy undergrowth. The glistening
waters of the villus were filled with herons, egrets, pelicans,
stork-bills, spoonbills and innumerable waterbirds, the open plains
with herds of spotted deer, sambhur, stately and tall, and sluggish
12-foot crocodiles basking in the sun. Lovely water plants with
feathery white kekatiya flowers and water lilies tossed their pink
heads to the whispering of the wind and brought to mind Monet's
painting of water lilies, the soft shades of nature, a palette of
colour in browns, soft greens and beige adding to the beauty of
the glade. The tranquillity
of the villu had to be savoured for the joy it brought the beholder.
You could sit there for hours and enjoy the silence and beauty around
you. If you are lucky as we have been, as the dark streaks of the
afterglow of sunset set in, you may see a leopard stalking cautiously
up to drink water. Then with a flurry, the birds will fly away and
the deer scamper in all directions as monkeys on the treetops with
their incessant calls signal the onset of danger. We have seen
many leopards in different locations at Wilpattu. Once we spotted
a leopard that had killed a deer, slung it over the branch of a
large tree and was eating it with relish. As we watched it crunching
the bones and eating the raw flesh, bits of bone kept dropping into
our jeep much to our horror! We were able to watch the leopard as
long as we wanted as it took no notice of us, engrossed in its meal. On another
occasion, we had seen many birds including the serpent eagle, the
hawk eagle, hornbills and the rare purple-headed migrant kingfisher,
green and blue bee-eaters, pelican and Ibis which is sacred to the
Egyptians and many others. We also saw deer, a porcupine, an ant-eater
and smaller denizens of the forest but we hadn't seen even one elk
or any of the bigger animals. We headed for a villu eager to watch
the sunset and stopped at an open park-like area when, lo and behold,
a few yards away was a huge leopard sprawled on the ground. We have
lovely photographs of this lazy leopard yawning, stretched out on
the sand. The light was good and the leopard lazed unconcerned and
made no attempt to move except to stare at us with total contempt. On another
occasion, while returning home through the forest, we saw right
in front of us, a leopard on the road. As we watched, it walked
on, unconcerned. We could almost count the spots on its body, it
was so close. That it did not run away was a mystery. Leopards usually
just vanish into the thicket even before you can blink. Our last visit
to Wilpattu is strongly etched in our minds. It was just a week
before the terrorist attack. We started off early one morning, had
breakfast at the Chilaw rest house, stopped at the market and loaded
our vehicle with lagoon prawns before proceeding to Madurankuli
where we have a 50-acre coconut plantation. After lunch,
we went to Wilpattu where we had booked a bungalow. We slept on
camp beds on the open verandah only to be woken in the middle of
the night by a strange noise. To our utter horror, there was a huge
black bear seated on a chair eating off our condensed milk tin!!
We couldn't help laughing though we were somewhat afraid of the
bear who reminded us of the childhood story of the three bears.
Fortunately, it soon scampered off. We were told it was a frequent
nocturnal intruder and often ran off with sponge cakes and parcels
of milk toffees left on the table by unsuspecting visitors. Once, on one
of our morning rounds in the jungle, we came across an unusual spectacle.
A huge python was at the water's edge in a somnambulistic state,
having just swallowed a deer in its entirety. The deer’s antlers
were protruding out of its mouth. The python's stomach was immense
and it was unable to move. It seems that pythons wait motionless
for weeks till the food digests and the antlers (of the deer) rot
and fall off. It was a fantastic sight and my husband, who was a
keen wildlife photographer, captured this scene for posterity. While at Wilpattu
we also went to two historic spots in the heart of the jungle. One
was the site of Kuveni's palace which is close to Kalivilu bungalow.
There are huge megalithic, pre-Vijayan, monolith pillars which are
said to be part of Kuveni's palace as authenticated by the Archaeological
Department. It is close to the sea and the sand here has a bright
copper hue. It is not surprising that this area was called Tambapanni
because of its copper, thamba-coloured sand. Kuveni was the aborigine
princess who sat spinning when Vijaya landed and she wove her web
of sorcery to captivate him as is recorded in the Mahavamsa. Prince
Vijaya married her and their progeny are the Veddahs. The other place
we went in search of on the outskirts of Wilpattu was Pomparippuwa.
There is a small building there of recent vintage but the megalithic
burial jars were not to be seen. One such burial jar is in the National
Museum in Colombo. It is interesting to know that these secondary
burials in huge jars was a practice in very early times and indicates
a Sinhalese civilisation long before the landing of Vijaya during
the Megalithic period. This Pomparipuwa burial site has been excavated
by an archaeologist named Bigley, and his report on burial jars
and Carnelian copper and iron artefacts is well documented. Even if the animals are few now, Wilpattu is still an extremely interesting place to visit. |
||||
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
