SHIPWRECKED FISHERMEN 131 



Dondra Head, the man on the lookout reported a 

 boat in distress right ahead of us. It proved to be 

 an overturned catamaran, with two men clinging to 

 the broken outrigger, so we hove to, and lowered a 

 boat and picked them up. One of them, quite a 

 youth, was too exhausted to move ; but the other, 

 who was an old man, had sufficient strength to climb 

 up the gangway without any assistance, and to exhibit 

 dumb transports of gratitude that would have softened 

 a heart of stone. We clothed them in suits of blanket- 

 cloth, and laid them out to dry on the warm grating 

 of the boiler-room, and gradually restored them with 

 stimulants and hot soup, until at last they were able 

 to speak. Then the old man told us that he and three 

 other men from a small village between Galle and 

 Dondra Head had, four days before, gone afishing, 

 and had been blown out to sea by a storm, which 

 broke their outrigger, and so capsized their frail 

 catamaran ; that for two whole days they lay tossing 

 in the sea, exposed to the fury of wave and wind and 

 rain, their anguish being increased by the fact that 

 they were right in the track of trade, and were fre- 

 quently passed unnoticed by steamers whose attention 

 they vainly endeavoured to attract ; that at first one 

 and then another of his mates had dropped off ex- 

 hausted, and that his remaining companion was just 

 about to succumb to fate when the Investigator bore 

 down upon them. This tale was corroborated by the 



