386 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



of Colombo long enough to do all I want without hav- 

 ing to come back for supplies. The Amra is fully as 

 comfortable as the Albatross, and it makes me sick to 

 think I might ten years ago have built such a boat for 

 my work and have had no complications with Govern- 

 ment officials. Still I have had my work, if not exactly 

 as I might have had it — owning a boat would not have 

 cost me a bit more in the long run. But it 's too late 

 now to begin. 



Agassiz had letters from the English government to 

 the officials in Ceylon, who notified the Sultan of the 

 Maldives (an independent protectorate of Ceylon) of 

 the proposed expedition. The Amra made directly for 

 the capital of the group, the small island of Male on the 

 southeast rim of the atoll of that name. Most of the 

 little island, perhaps a mile long and nearly half a mile 

 broad, is covered by an old ruined fort, all that remains 

 of the attempted occupation of the Maldives by the 

 Dutch and Portuguese. On the northwest face of the 

 island is a breakwater enclosing a little harbor which 

 affords shelter for native boats. An open space leads up 

 from the landing to a solid wall of coral limestone that 

 surrounds the Sultan's palace, a rambling structure of 

 the same material, half bungalow and half castle, with 

 overhanging eaves and a corrugated iron roof. The rest 

 of the island is covered with the native village ; its neat 

 streets shaded with magnolia, banana, bread-fruit, and 

 other tropical trees, under whose shade the bamboo- 

 framed houses, covered with thatch, rest each in its 

 little courtyard carefully fenced off with cocoanut 

 leaves. 



After lunch on the day of their arrival the whole 



