CHAPTER XII 



A TWO months' cruise IN THE LACCADIVE SEA 



(continued) 



Betrapar Atoll : Aggressive Eels. Aucutta Island : Dead Flies in 

 the Ointment : Sea-fish in Freshwater Ponds. The Lament- 

 able Story of Pitti Sandbank. The Island of Minnikoy : 

 Geography and Geology : The Lady of the Land : Social and 

 Domestic Institutions : Ad Illacrimahilem Plutona. 



After leaving Cardamum, where I collected, both 

 of plant and animal life, as much as I could get in 

 a single day, we went to Betrapar, an atoll which, 

 except at one small spot at its extreme northern end, 

 is submerged at flood-tide. On this forlorn spot of 

 dry land, which is known as Tree Island, I landed 

 one evening with some surveyors who were going to 

 take stars." As it was low spring-tide, we had to 

 leave our boat at the outermost edge of the atoll and 

 to wade across the reef to the island, and during this 

 delicate progress — for growing coral is by no means 

 pleasant stuff to walk upon, even when a man is 

 shod — we were surprised to find ourselves furiously 

 attacked by a swarm of the spotted reef-eel {Murc^na 

 pseudotkyrsoidea), for it was their breeding season, a 

 period when they are always strangely irritable and 



