262 Report on the Laccadive Islands. [No. 10, new series. 



88. Once a month the Beebee's employee! inform the women 

 of the Island before hand of the day which has been appointed 

 for the picking up of the nuts, and on the day a woman or more 

 from every house except those of the Malikans goes at sunrise to 

 a part of the Beebee's plantation. 



89. The people are not admitted into these at any other times, 

 but for these occasions they are divided off into portions by the 

 paths which intersect them, in each of these divisions is a rude 

 •torehouse. 



90. The women usually return every month to hunt for nuts in 

 the same division, and thus at dawn each goes straight to her 

 usual division, collects what nuts she can find at the foot of the 

 trees, and taking them to the storehouse of that division receives 8 

 cocoanuts for her day's work and a per-centage of 4 (nuts) for 

 every 100 she has collected : the nuts are counted at the store- 

 house by the Beebee's employees with temporary assistants from 

 among the Islanders (who also are paid for their services in nuts), 

 and the woman is then allowed to return homewards with as large a 

 bundle of firewood as she likes to collect and carry, and a basket 

 with her cocoanuts in it and a chit of leaf saying how many she 

 had collected : near the place where all the houses are, the Bee- 

 bee's chief agent sits and examines each of the baskets and chits 

 as they pass to prevent robbery. 



91. Of the 8 nuts given to the women as cooly, 3 have the 

 shell broken to prevent their coming into market in competition 

 with the Beebee's nuts. 



Massfishing. 



92. The profits of Massfishing are very uncertain, as they de- 

 pend entirely on the numbers in which the fish themselves arrive 

 in the neighbourhood, and this is very variable . the 14 per cent, 

 of the daily catch which goes to the owner of the boats does not 

 pay them if the numbers caught are small, but it does very hand- 

 somely if they are large. 



93. There are in Menakoy 10 Mass-boats, they fish continu- 

 ously for only 6 months in the year, the other months being too 

 stormy, and about 50,000 fish is the average number taken ; 

 100,000 could only be taken in a very fine season ; about 25,000 



