Ill 
Village of Nigumho. 
several thousand rupees. A Moor or Malabar man is usually 
the farmer, and he alone is allowed to dispose of the fish 
caught here. He employs all the boats belonging to the place, 
paying the owners a certain daily hire. The people he engages 
are compelled by the authority of government to fish every 
day that the w^eather will permit, Sundays and particular fes- 
tivals excepted. These fishermen are obliged to purchase from 
the farmer any fish they may want for their own use. Whether 
this system be the best for government, or for the fishermen, 
may be disputed ; but it is plainly the worst for the purchaser, 
as all competition is destroyed. 
Although Columbo has a very extensive fishery of its own, 
yet it is also largely supplied from Nigumbo. The fish, as soon 
as caught, are put into boats, conveyed by the rivers and canals 
during the night, and sold in the bazars next morning. 
I was struck with a curious method of catching fish practised 
by the natives in the lakes and rivers adjoining to Nigumbo. 
They go into the water up to the middle of the thighs, carry- 
ing in their hands a round basket of a conical form, something 
resembling our wire rat-traps without the bottom. This they 
suddenly plunge into the water quite down to the mud. They 
soon find whether they have enclosed a fish by its beating 
against the sides of the basket: when this is the case, they 
thrust down their arm through the hole at the top and lay 
hold of it. They string the fish, as they catch them, on a piece 
of rattan or baraboe, which is fastened round their waist ; and 
I have often seen them quite loaded with what they caught in 
this manner. While the operation of plunging the basket is 
continued, other persons are employed in splashing the water 
all around, in order to make the fish go towards the basket,' 
