218 



Notes of mi excursion along [no. 6, new series, 



become the prey of the monsters at the bottom. The banks 

 of the canal leading to Allepey are fringed with several in- 

 teresting plants. The Lantana Indica, with its pale pink, orange 

 and white varieties of flowers, is strikingly beautiful. The 

 scarlet festoons of the Barringtonia acutangula, and the gorgeous 

 golden spikes of the Cassia alata are chiefly conspicuous, large 

 specimens of the Terminalia Catappa overhang the banks, while the 

 Pandanus so admirably adapted for retaining the soil and prevent- 

 ing its gliding into the water is plentifully planted. The large 

 kind of dock, the Colocasia nymphceifolia, with its finely reticulated 

 leaves is thickly growing at the waters edge. Of this latter plant, 

 there are two kinds, to all appearance similar, but one is cultiva- 

 ted for the sake of its roots, which are eaten, while the other is not. 

 The cultivated species is I believe the Caladium ovatum, the Ka- 

 rinfola of Rheede. 



Important as Allepey is to the Travancore Government as a 

 commercial depot, from the facility of an inland water communica- 

 tion, which enables the forest products to be brought to the very 

 doors of the godowns established for their reception, yet undoubt- 

 edly its greatest advantage as an emporium arises from the singu- 

 lar natural breakwater formed in the open roadstead, and which 

 consists of a long and wide bank of mud, the effect of which i3 so 

 completely to break the force of the houses, that large vessels in 

 the stormiest weather can securely anchor in the open roads, where 

 the water is as calm as a mile-pond. It is this extraordinary de- 

 posit which has earned for Allepey the name of " mud bay." The 

 origin of this deposition of so large a quantity of mud in the open 

 sea about two or three miles from the shore, and so many miles 

 from any bar or outlet from the backwater has never been satifac- 

 torily accounted for. From the circumsiance of there being no 

 natural outlet for the vast accumulation of waters which are poured 

 down from the various mountain streams into the basin of the back- 

 water, nearer than thirty six miles on either side, it is not impro- 

 bable that there exists a subterraneous channel communicating with 

 the sea from the backwater through which the large quantity of mud 

 is carried off and thrown up again by the sea in the form of a bank. 



See Captain Coape's Voyage to the East Indies. 



