40 



bungalow. Here, too, are the headquarters of the police .... 

 By the side of this spit of land, and closely moored to it, are the 

 Dih, the Antelope, and the Sultan Iskander, which serve as quarters 

 of the Government Auditor, Captain Donnan, and their subordinate 

 officers. Far away from this site and at the very end of the 

 spit can be described some half a dozen yellow flags, which are 

 said to indicate the situation of the quarantine station and the 



hospitals for cholera and small-pox patients Somewhere 



about the commencement of the spit stands a dilapidated Roman 

 Catholic church, sea-eaten and falling into ruins. Father 

 Dineaux, who is temporarily in charge, tells me that his church 

 is in imminent danger of total disappearance owing to encroach- 

 ments from the sea like the proverbial building that was built 

 on the sands. The cemetery which belonged to this church and 

 formed part of its grounds has long since been claimed by the 

 sea, and those who were once buried in terra firma now sleep 

 beneath the wave." 



A small guard steamer was employed in cruising about 

 the bay during the fishery, so as to prevent the divers, en 

 their return from the bank, from dropping bags of oysters in 

 the shallow water, which could afterwards be picked up. This 

 form of fraud — and the frauds perpetrated by pearl divers 

 are many — was scarcely possible at Tuticorin, where the 

 boats arrived on shore opposite the kottu straight from the 

 open sea. 



Grood fresh water was obtained from shallow wells dug in 

 the sandy shore, and there was an abundance of water, con- 

 densed by the Serendih, in a large lank ; but the condensed 

 water did not seem to be appreciated by the natives. 



I had, unfortunately, no opportunity of watching the 

 process of counting the oysters in the kottu, or the manage- 

 ment of an auction on a large scale ; but, so far as I could 

 gather from the counting and sale of the oysters brought in 

 by the nine boats already referred to, the system was the 

 same as that adopted at Tuticorin. 



Turning now to a comparison of the Tuticorin and Dutch 

 Bay fisheries in the present year, the latter had the advan- 

 tages of — 



i. a large fleet (193) of boats, and a correspondingly 



large staff of divers ; 

 ii. the presence of an eSicient steam-tug throughout the 

 fishery, by means of which both time and labour 

 were saved : 



