86 SUMMER ISLANDS AND A SUMMER SEA 



to turn round towards the sea again, as other observers 

 in other lands have described. 



From South Sentinel we crossed the Bay of Bengal 

 to Colombo, taking soundings on the way. The 

 deepest of these, near the middle of the mouth of 

 the Bay, showed a depth of 2035 fathoms, a tempera- 

 ture (after correction for pressure) of 34° Fahr., and 

 a bottom of pure Globigerina-ooze. 



Rounding Ceylon and Cape Comorin we proceeded 

 to Bombay, stopping on the way at Anderut and 

 Kiltan in the Laccadive archipelago, to check the 

 meridional distances of those two islands from Bombay. 



All the Laccadive islands appear to be the remains 

 of eroded atolls, raised only a few feet above the 

 sea-level, and formed entirely of coral rock and coral 

 sand. They rise quite abruptly from a sea that 

 within half a mile of shore is often close upon 1000 

 fathoms deep. Small though they are, they are thickly 

 inhabited, the population of Anderut — an island but 

 2 miles long and only a few hundred yards broad — 

 being (in 1889) over 4000 souls. The people, who 

 are Mahomedans with some remarkable survivals of 

 primitive pagan customs, live chiefly by the cultivation 

 of the coconut, the husk of which they macerate and 

 beat-out into coir for the Malabar market, where they 

 exchange it for rice and salt, and cloth, and other 

 simple necessaries of life. They also do a little deep- 



