340 
FISHES. 
[Chap. X. 
to be evaporated to dryness till the mud of the bottom 
is converted into dust, and the clay cleft by the heat 
into gaping apertures ; yet within a very few days after 
the change of the monsoon, the natives are busily en- 
gaged in fishing in those very spots and in the hollows 
contiguous to them, although the latter are entirely 
unconnected with any pool or running streams. Here 
they fish in the same way which Knox described nearly 
200 years ago, with a funnel-shaped basket, open at 
bottom and top, " which," as he says, " they jibb down, 
and the end sticks in the mud, which often happens 
upon a fish ; which, when they feel beating itself against 
the sides, they put in their hands and take it out, and 
reive a ratan through their gills, and so let them drag 
after them." 1 
FROM KNOX'S CEYLON, a. d. 1683 
This operation may be seen in the lowlands, traversed 
1 Knox, Historical Relation of Ceylon, Part i. ch. vi. 
