of Edinburgh , Session 1872-73. 71 
because there are few harbours which can easily be entered in it, 
and ships lying out at sea could not communicate with the shore ; 
and partly because the native craft are so ill found and such 
rattle-traps of vessels, that they would go to the bottom. But it is 
simply a long continuance of tolerably steady-blowing strong winds, 
with torrents of rain, such as we do not have in this country, and 
not the least formidable to properly-found vessels or to steamers. 
I have been at sea in the worst burst of the south-west monsoon, 
and never felt the slightest uneasiness, much less serious thought 
of danger. 
The cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, on the east coast, are of 
course very different. 
. The rain, however, in the south-west monsoon is a serious draw 
back to shipping cargoes. 
I explored about 200 miles of the internal water-communication, 
reporting on Calicut, Beypore, and Cochin harbours for the Govern- 
ment of India, and also on Quilon, at the request of the Maharajah 
of Travancore, and the Dewan, Sir Madava Bow. The canals in 
the northern position have only 2 feet 6 inches of water as a mini- 
mum, but in the Travancore state they are all intended to have 
4 feet. 1 advised that the latter depth should be extended to the 
full distance, and the canals in various places straitened, so that 
the whole system might be opened up for small steamers, both to 
carry passengers and to tow cargo boats. 
The greater part of the distance that Col. Farewell, superintend- 
ing engineer, South Canara, and I travelled, was through cocoa- 
nut groves, and we had cabined boats, with from twelve to 
twenty rowers each, who sang fearful choruses almost the whole 
way. 
The scenery was very beautiful, especially near Quilon, but the 
heat often very great, and always stifling. Of course, when we had 
to sleep in the boat, the mosquitoes were very troublesome. 
The backwaters run parallel to the coast, and at a short distance 
from it, at times swelling out into lakes of varying sizes, the largest 
being at Cochin, where the backwater is almost the size of Loch 
Lomond. There are many mouths into the sea; some being shut up 
during the dry weather by the bars of sand which the surf is con- 
stantly throwing across any opening in the coast line ; others, like 
VOL. VIII. 
