342 CALICUT. Chap. XXI. 



lifera). When we shoved off from the ' Pleiad ' a handsome 

 fish-hawk, with white head and breast, was perched on the fore- 

 topsail yard-arm, and sea-snakes were playing in the water 

 alongside. In-shore there were a few native craft, called 

 pattamars, at anchor, Pattamars are the vessels which have 

 carried on the coasting trade on the western side of India 

 from time immemorial. As in the days of Sindbad the 

 sailor, their planks are not nailed, but sewn together with 

 coir-twine, and they have high sterns and bows sheering 

 rapidly aft. The deepest part is at the stem, whence the 

 bottom curves inwards to the stern. A pattamar has two 

 masts raking forward, with long picturesque lateen yards 

 slung with one-third part before the mast, and two-thirds 

 abaft. They never attempt to tack, but always ware, and 

 if taken aback there is no alternative but either to wait 

 until she comes round, or to ca]3size. 



On landing at Calicut, a carriage drawn by two white 

 bullocks was, through the hospitality of ]\Ir. Patrick Grant, 

 the Collector of Malabar, waiting for us on the sandy beach, 

 to convey us to his house ; a drive of about two miles. The 

 excellent road, of a bright red colour from the soil being 

 composed of laterite, passes through groves of cocoanut- 

 trees, interspersed with many houses, each surrounded by its 

 garden of mangos, nux vomica trees, jacks with pepper-vines 

 creeping over them, and palm-trees. The houses are all 

 substantial and comfortable-looking, built of square blocks of 

 laterite joined A^^itli chunam, or lime made from calcined sea- 

 shells, and roofed with tiles. The laterite or ii-on-clay is a 

 rock full of cavities and pores like coral, overlying the 

 granite which forms the basis of ]\Ialabar. When excluded 

 from the air it is so soft that any iron instrument can readily 

 cut it, and is dug up in square masses with a pickaxe, and 

 afterwards shaped into blocks with a knife or trowel. After 

 exposure it soon becomes as hard, and is as durable as bricks. 



