Ill 



being packed. The price received for the cured product is 

 from Rs. 3 to Rs. 5 per tolam of 28 lb., sold through Mangalore 

 middlemen. None of those refinements are practised which by 

 ensuring good keeping qualities, a fine flavour and a tempting 

 appearance, tend so greatly to enhance prices and make the 

 industry profitable ; of this more will be said on a later page. 



105. In the islands at the head of the Gulf of Mannar 

 beche-de-mer fishermen are aware of the value of oil in stilling 

 ripples on the surface of the water and so permitting of a clear 

 view of objects on the bottom ; when interrogated the Kiltan 

 men stated they never used oil for such a purpose in fishing 

 koka, but that they employ a somewhat similar device when 

 they wish to recover objects dropped overboard in the lagonu. 

 Their plan is to chew the kernel of a ripe coconut aud to spit 

 the juice on the surface of the water where it spreads as an 

 oily film stilling the ripples. In Kiltan the islanders pay little 

 attention to fishing ; their wants are few and their coconut 

 palms usually sufficient to supply llieni. The bulk of the 

 fishing done is by hook and line outside the reef on the small 

 submarine plateau where the steamer anchored. The bottom 

 over this area offers the greatest contrast to that of the lagoon 

 — great rounded masses of star and brain corals alternating 

 with huge madrepore bushes giving food aud shelter to a host 

 of fishes and crustaceans. The fishing line employed is of white 

 cotton cord, never tanned, and armed. with 2 hooks. 



106. Within the lagoon, especially during the south-w r est 

 monsoon, when communication with the world without is sus- 

 pended, a certain amount of netting is done. Kandalai vala, 

 adi vala aud viclia vala are the three forms of nets employed. 



107. The last named, a casting net of the simplest con- 

 struction, is not tanned and is used only from the shore, never 

 from boats as on the Malabar coast. It has no strings, is of 

 unbarked cotton and is furnished with elongated leads strung 

 at short intervals alon^ the margin. 



108. The kandalai vala is the largest net used ; it is 

 employed not only in the home lagoon but also very extensively 

 when fishing expeditions are made to the large uninhabited 

 reefs laying far to the westward, e.g., Byramgore, Bitra, Cher- 

 baniani and Perumal Paars. It is a form of shore-seine made 

 of unbarked cotton with J^ inch meshes in the wings, decreas- 

 ing to £ inch in the bunt or centre. The float line is buoyed 

 at short intervals by cylindrical wooden floats threaded on. 

 Usually it is employed in conjunction with a scare line or ola 

 vala, a line to which are tied many narrow strips of coconut 

 leaf. The method of using them is for two skiffs (or two men) 

 carrying the ola vala to proceed side by side some distance 



