104 



SOUTHERX AND CENTRAL PROVINCES. [Paet YII. 



foot to the heiglit. This is sewed to the gunwale by coir 

 yarn, so that no ii^on or anj^ other metal enters into the 

 construction of a canoe. But then- characteristic pe- 

 cuharity is the balance-log, of very buoyant wood, up- 

 wards of twenty feet in length, carried at the extremity 

 of two elastic outriggers each eighteen feet long. By tliis 

 arrangement not oidy is the boat steadied, but mast, yard 

 and sail are bound securely together.-^ 



The outrigger must of necessity be always kept to 

 Avdndward, and as it woidd not be possible to remove 

 it fi'om side to side, the canoe is so constructed as to 

 proceed with either end foremost, thus elucidating an 

 observation made by Phny eighteen hmidred years ago, 

 that the ships which navigated the seas to the west of 

 Taprobane had 'proics at either end, to avoid the necessity 

 of tacking;.^ 



These peculiar craft venture twenty miles to sea in 

 a strong wind ; they sail upwards of ten miles an hom% 

 and notliing can be more pictiu*esque than the sight at 

 daybreak, of the numerous fleets of fishing boats, which 

 cruise along the coast wlulst the morning is still misty 

 and cool, and hasten to shore after sum-ise with their cap- 

 tiu-es, consisting not only of ordinary fish, whose scales 

 are flaked with silver or " bedi'opped with gold," but also 

 including those of unusual shapes, displajing the brightest 

 colours of the rainbow. 



Passinfj the oiim old Portuijuese batteries ^ and 



^ It is reDiarkable tliat this form 

 of canoe is found only where the 

 INlalavs have extended themselves 

 throughont Poh-nesia and the coral 

 islands of the Pacific ; and it seems 

 so pecidiar to that race that it is to 

 be traced in Madagascar and the 

 Comoros, where a ^lalayan colony 

 was settled at some remote period of 

 antiquity. The outrigger is unknown 

 amongst the Arabs, and is little seen 

 on the coast of India. 



^ "Ob id navihus ictrinque j)rorcs 

 ne per angiistias alvei circumagi sit 



necesse." — PLijrr, Kat. Hist., lib. xi. 

 ch. xxiv. Strabo mentions the same 

 fact ; lib. xv. ch. xv. 



^ The most conspicuous outwork 

 bears the name of the " Portuguese 

 battery," but the Portuguese, not 

 anticipating the approach of an 

 enemy fi'om sea, never effectually 

 fortified Galle, except on the land 

 side ; and the batteries which now 

 command the harbour were con- 

 sti-ucted by the Dutch in 1003. — \x- 

 LEXTY]S', ch. xiv. p. 177. 



