ISLAND INDUSTRIES 195 



even snakes, have been introduced to check it, but as 

 generally happens when man puts himself into direct 

 opposition with Nature before he has learned all her 

 secrets, the original evil goes on unchanged, while the 

 imagined remedies only become additional sources of 

 discomfort ; so that the people of Minnikoy are still 

 asking for some means of destroying rats more 

 regular and more automatic in action than that of 

 hitting them on the head with a stick. 



Another important industry of the Minnikoy com- 

 munity is boat-building, an art in which they have 

 attained much skill. They make boats of three kinds : 

 canoes for the lagoon and for fair weather, fishing- 

 smacks for the open sea, and trading-brigs which are 

 seaworthy enough to make voyages to the ports of 

 Bengal. Their fishing-smacks, which are much used 

 in the tunny-fishery, are fit to compare in respect of 

 workmanship with a good Europe-built cutter : they 

 are made partly of palm wood, partly of the white 

 wood of the so-called ''country almond" [Terminalia 

 catappa), which grows plentifully on the island, and 

 partly of teak imported from Malabar, and in shape 

 and massive strength they have a strong likeness to 

 an ancient war-galley. 



The tunny-fishery is another of the important 

 industries of Minnikoy. The various species of tunny 

 {Tkynnus), known as tunny, bonito, and albacore, are 

 large fishes of the mackerel family which frequent the 



