RELICS OF PIRACY 163 



headquarters of Mahratta piracy, and for such 

 nefarious practices it is most villainously adapted ; 

 for, being a land-locked harbour opening on to a 

 rocky coast by an almost hidden passage, impassable 

 at low-water to any but light craft, it affords at once 

 an ideal ambush and an ideal retreat. On the 

 southern side of the harbour, overlooking the sea and 

 commanding the entrance, is a fort, said to have been 

 built at the beginning of the eighteenth century by 

 pirates of the Mahratta clan of Angrias. Though 

 now a ruin, its broad ramparts of hewn laterite are 

 still in good enough preservation to give some idea 

 of its former strength, and to make one wonder what 

 sort of answer Melpomene would give if certain 

 thrilling questions of its past history could be put to 

 her ; for in bygone days many a portly argosy of 

 Europe vailed her high-top to the Angrias pirates, 

 and the fate of many a white captive must have been 

 decided in their inhospitable forts. Walking back to 

 the harbour, I slew a deadly little carpet-viper {Echis 

 carinatus), over whose body I preached a warning 

 sermon to the boat-party who were having their camp 

 pitched close by. 



From Deoghur we went, south-west by south, 

 into the Laccadive Sea, where we cruised for nearly 

 two months, sketching and checking the position of the 

 islands, running lines of deep-sea soundings, and 

 occasionally taking a turn with the deep-sea dredge. 



