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. 168] 



This operation may be seen in the lowlands, traversed 

 1 Knox, Historical Belation of Ceylon, Part i. ch. yi. 



