Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/63

Rh delight, we saw trees rising upon the distant horizon. Every moment brought new excitements. Now a native vessel is bearing down upon us with its coarse black sail surmounting its primitive hull; the vessel looking as heathenish as its crew. Soon the cry of “boats” is raised; they are the catamarans of the Coromandel coast; one is just before us. It is manned by three Hindus, who stand or kneel, and ply their paddles now on this side, now on that, with great rapidity and skill. Their barque is composed of five untrimmed logs lashed together, (catamaran means “tied trees,”) and is sunk to the level of the water by their weight, so that at a little distance, you might imagine the boatmen to be walking on the sea. No matter how high the waves, when all other boats are worthless, the fisherman fearlessly launches his catamaran, and ventures out to sea.

Our visitors (for they boarded us to sell us fish) were dressed in a strip of cotton cloth about their loins, and a peaked and brimless hat of palm-leaf; one of them was more fully dressed, having on a woollen jacket, procured from some ship. As they clambered up the ship's side, almost naked, with their black bodies glistening in the sun, and jabbering in