5 



A 



though they are sent inland, e.g., from Tanur, for food. 

 It is said, in South Canara, that the locally salted and 

 - dried fish does not keep well during the monsoon but 

 gets soft and unpleasant, so that considerable quantities 

 of dried fish from the Persian Gulf which keeps better 

 are imported ; the reason for this difference is not at 

 present known. 



2 2. The exceptions to the above method are at 



present trivial ; one is the method 



of cuHn?'°"'' '""'"'' practised by Ratnagiri men at 



Malpe for treating large fish. A 

 second is the preparation of so-called "tamarind fish " at 

 Cochin for the Colombo market ; this method resembles 

 that of pickling herring " wet " in barrels, viz., the 

 placing of the fish (mackerel as a rule) in alternate 

 layers with salt in hogsheads of 60 to 65 gallons 

 capacity which are locally and well made : a small 

 quantity of " guraka (or 'kudum') puli " (Malabar 

 tamarind) which gives the name to the product, is 

 added, and the barrel after settling for a few days is then 

 partially drained through a spigot hole, filled to the top 

 from a barrel of similar age, and the whole headed 

 up. This product must not be confounded with the 

 "tamarind-fish" (pada) known to Europeans, and also 

 prepared on the West Coast : this is a mere domestic 

 product and consists of seer preserved in various con- 

 diments in jars. A third exception is the enterprise ot 

 a French resident at Mahe who tins sardines : this 

 manufacturer keeps his processes jealously secret, but is 

 apparently succeeding since he has applied for a petrol 

 or alcohol license in order to use a motor boat in his 

 industry : at present he is the solitary canner on the 

 Coast, and his products are, as compared with those of 

 Europe, remarkably cheap: merchants of other places 

 are anxious to ascertain the processes of canning which 

 I have explained to them : full details will be found in 

 my final reports.* 



These exceptions, then, are of little importance, and 

 there is a singular lack of all processes and of all 

 knowledge of processes other than the common method ; 

 smoking, pickling wet in salt, canning, mealing with or 

 without subsequent compression, and so forth, are 



* A Government cannery is now (1914) in successful operation. 



