oct. — MiE. 1859-60.] Report on the Laccadive Islands. 249 



English ; from that time the people have assumed to themselves 

 more independence. 



9. A considerable change was wrought in the relative position 

 of the Beebee, and the people on the occasion of a quarrel 30 years 

 ago between one of the Beebee's Captains and his crew ; the latter 

 mutinied and the matter having been referred to the Beebee's 

 agent on the Island, the people clubbed together and refused to 

 tolerate his interference ; from that time the Beebee's power here 

 has been more of influence than of despotic authority, this how- 

 ever, from a discreet use of the power of obliging or disobliging 

 them given her by her landed possessions there, and by the number 

 of appointments which she held out for sailors, pilots and captains 

 in her various vessels, has always* been very considerable. 



10. About the year 1850 the crews of some of the Islanders 

 vessels, on the return voyage from Bengal, mutinied at Galle and 

 refusing to touch as desired by the owners at the Maldives sailed 

 straight back to Menakoy : the merchants represented to the 

 Beebee that if their trade was liable to be thus interfered with by 

 sudden freaks of the populace, their profits would be small, and they 

 would be wholly unable to comply with the Beebee's occasional calls 

 for loans, and the Beebee therefore ordered the sailors to appear be- 

 fore her at Cannanore : the order was disregarded, and an agent 

 (Soopy Kooty) being sent to the Island had many of the people 

 flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails and many fined ; the Beebee at 

 the same time levied a loan of Rupees 200 each from several of 

 the merchants. 



Physical Description. 



11. Menakoy is a coral Island with the usual characteristic of 

 such places ; a mass of coral about 5j miles in diameter (5 from 



Note. — Nearly all the small and some of the larger vessels in the Is- 

 land are built from remarkably hard, strong old cocoanut trees found on 

 the Beebee's property and on no other parts of the Island. The boats are 

 chiefly pegged and the wood for these pegs, for the knees, &c., and tha 

 rollers on which they are launched and drawn up again are taken for 

 the most part from the Beebee's land with her permission, as also are 

 firewood and much fibre for ropes from a jungle tree. 



The monthly payment of cocoanuts to those who collect her nuts for 

 her is a great source of support to them. 



