THE LACCADIVES AND THE WEST COAST. 443 
bring all the coir they desire to part with to Mangalore and 
there sell it at a certain price to Government, such price being 
considerably below its market value. The Government then 
sell the coir by auction, and under recent orders, a certain 
percentage on the difference between the prices paid and rea- 
lised by Government is, I believe, to be given to the producers. 
The bargain is not nearly so disadvantageous to the islanders 
as might at first sight appear. In the first place, they pay no 
other tax. In the second place, they are paid three-fourths in 
rice and one-fourth only in money, and the rice is given ata 
fixed rate, much less than the market value, in some years less 
than half that value, a rate fixed long ago when rice was far 
cheaper than it now is. In the third place they have no bother 
of hunting about for purchasers—no delay in completing 
bargains, and while the former is important to strangers who 
are invariably cheated by the mainland sharpers, the latter is a 
sine qua non as the frail 6 to 15 tons vessels in which the trade 
is chiefly, I may say entirely, carried on, cannot conveniently 
come up to Mangalore before a certain time and cannot safely 
return after a certain date, and on their return it must be re- 
membered the grain supply to the whole population for a year 
depends. 
There are other minor advantages enjoyed with regard to salt, 
&e., by the Islanders, so that the arrangement is not really in- 
equitable to them, and, as a matter of fact, when administrative 
expenses have been defrayed, the native medical officer that 
Government keeps there, and the vaccinators that are sent there 
periodically (for the people, unlike most Indian populations, 
highly appreciate vaccination), are paid for,a very small surplus 
remains, and this is not more than sufficient to meet the extra- 
ordinary expense, which has every now and then to be incurred 
(as in 1863 and 1871) of suddenly chartering a steamer with 
rice to send down to the islands to avert ceneral semi-starvation. 
To return now to Kiltan in particular; in the central portion 
of the leeward half of the great cocoanut grove, which covers 
nearly the whole island, about 180 odd houses containing a 
population of some 750 souls are scattered about. Many of 
these houses seem comfortable enough, the walls being solidly 
built of blocks of coral rock, and the roofs constructed of 
cocoanut leaves, laid on rafters of wreck wood or split palm 
trunks. Many houses, however, are wholly composed of 
these latter materials. 
February \7th.—During the night we ran down to Cardamum 
and anchored at the 8. W. corner. This is a long oval 
reef, like that of Kiltan, with the island similarly situated, but 
much larger, the reef being probably 43 miles and the island 
