22 INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. 



were among the most prosperous of the inhabitants along 

 the coasts of India ; who, when the Portuguese first landed, 

 were able to bring large armies into the field ; whose occu- 

 pation is now but too little considered by some of our 

 Indian officials — as an European civilian remarked, that 

 sympathy ought not to be wasted on fishermen, for they are 

 an independent, careless, and drunken set of men. This 

 gentleman appears to have placed upon official record what 

 are probably the feelings of many who are unacquainted 

 with, the state of this trade, for by careless and independent 

 is probably meant idle, which idleness is due, first, as I 

 have already explained, to the incidence of the salt-tax ; 

 and, secondly, that when salt is unobtainable, did they 

 exert themselves, the market would become overstocked. 



The result of the investigations I conducted in India led 

 me to conclude that wherever a good local demand existed 

 for fish, the fishermen were in a prosperous condition. 

 Wherever salt was dear, the fish-curers' trade was restricted 

 or destroyed, and as a result the fishermen were in 

 a depressed state. That fish salted with taxed or 

 monopoly salt is a luxury for the rich, the sick, and for 

 export : that such as is prepared with salt-earth keeps 

 badly, and predisposes to disease. That in many localities 

 where the salt-laws were rigidly enforced, the poor had to 

 consume their fish putrid, or simply immerse it in sea-water, 

 and then dry it in the sun. In short, it was patent to most 

 that the depressed condition of the fishermen and fish- 

 curers' trades was to be found in the incidence of the salt- 

 tax, and that those who deprecate any interference with the 

 poor fishermen, on the ground of their miserable state of 

 destitution, must be unaware of their real condition. One 

 cannot suppose such advisers to be oblivious of the dis- 

 tresses of those among whom they reside, or would desire 



