I asked a man who was standing there, if I could
ride across, on which he answered that I could.
I accordingly rode in, but soon found that the
pony was out of his depth. When a horse is
swimming, it is best to leave his head quite free,
lest the rider pull him over. I adopted this
precaution; but, before we had reached the middle
of the stream, the poor pony—he had come
a long stage already, the blanket had filled
with water, and was bearing him down—had
turned his head down the stream. The position
was becoming critical. I slipped my feet out
of the stirrups preparatory to striking out for
a boat which was crossing, should the worst
come to the worst; for, though a bad swimmer,
I could have managed that short distance. But
before abandoning my pony, I resolved to
try what could still be done, so I took up
the reins, turned his head as gently to the
opposite shore as I could, and encouraged him
to proceed; the gallant little creature carried me
over safely; and as we scrambled dripping up
the bank, the ferryman emerged from his hut,
where he had been comfortably sitting, and
demanded sixpence for the boat I had not
employed! On reaching the residence of the
magistrate, who lived near by, he told me that had I
been carried past the ferry, I must have been lost.

A Singhalese outrigger dhonie has just run in
under the land, and now lies close to the shore.
As she was standing in, one of the Peninsular
and Oriental steamers from Calcutta, bound for
Point de Galle, Aden, and Suez, passed her.
What a contrast; the one a type of progress,
the other of stagnation! Probably when King
Wijeyottee first landed on the shores of Ceylon
witli his followers, five hundred and forty-three
years before Christ, he came in a craft exactly
like this dhonie that lies at anchor close by, on
this the seventeenth day of February, A.D. 1864.
There she is, with two crooked sticks which she
calls masts. One great sail, which lies on her
thatched deck, a large rudder worked by a tiller,
and a wooden anchor, which is sunk by the help
of stones. Her planks are sewn together with
coir yarn, and she is prevented from capsizing
by a great outrigger; were we to examine her
register, we should find her described as "carvel
built, stem and stern nearly alike." She has, it
may be, come from Madras with a cargo of rice,
or perhaps she is carrying sundries coastwise; her
size may be eighty or a hundred tons. Her crew
will consist of some thirteen men, besides the
tindal or master. When they wish to ascend
the rigging, if such a term can be used, they
will climb up the ropes with the aid of their
toes, which, very properly, they call their "foot
fingers," and with which they can pick up a
thing from the ground as readily as we can with
our digits.

Although these dhonies are queer-looking
craft, they are very safe and very dry boats,
and before the wind they run very fast. I
remember sailing along the Coromandel coast
in one of the Jaffna dhonies, which, by the way,
have no outrigger. A French vessel was
running up the same coast all day, but she did not
overtake us, though in full sail. We were
about the same distance apart, when we reached
the French port of Pondicherry.

But for speed, commend me to the
outrigger canoe of the Singhalese. Take a long
tree, hollow it out, sew on a kind of bulwark,
attach an outrigger, hoist your sail, let down
your lee-boards, steer with them, and run out to
sea, hug the land when the breeze creeps off
the shore in the early morning; and you will
skim along the waves like a flying-fish. See yon
square rig on the horizon, steering the same
course as we are. In an hour we are abreast of
her. Another hour, and she is on the horizon
behind us. And now the sun is growing hot,
and you creep into your palanquin, which is
securely lashed to a small platform, and there
you lie, reading or dozing, till the wind has veered
round and is ahead of you. So you run in to
shore, land near a tope of cocoa-nuts, and have
your breakfast comfortably, bathe, and dress.
In the afternoon you take your gun, stroll into
the country, shoot a partridge or two, a hare,
a deer, maybe a pea-fowl, and return to your
boat and dine. At sunset the land breeze
again springs up, and off you go and sail all
night. You spend half your time on shore; and
you reach your destination—say the extreme
north of the island—very much sooner than you
would have reached it in a nasty, cockroachy, dirty
square rig, with sixty or seventy natives all
seasick around you, and yourself not much better.

But there is another side to this pleasing
picture. Public business has called you to the
capital, and has detained you for several weeks,
while some loved one has been pining, sick in
mind and body, by the sad sea waves, at a distant
out station. At last you are free, and the
question is how to get home again.

The Pearl, H.M. colonial steamer, has gone
to Calcutta to be cured of the barnacles. The
strong north-east is still blowing dead in your
teeth all day, and it would be a long
business to beat up against it in a sailing ship.
At last there is a lull, and you flatter yourself
the force of the monsoon has abated, and that the
wind has taken a slant from the west. The
land breeze blows for a night or two, and your
mind is made up; you will be off by an outrigger
canoe from Negombo. Thither you proceed
and engage a fine large canoe to take you to
Jaffna, and the tindal declares you shall be
there in four days if this wind lasts. The sly
rogue! He has to sail whether you engage a
passage or not, for is he not going to fish off
the Mullativoe Bank during the season? You
embark with your servants, your prog, and your
palanquin. You glide slowly down the back
water for half a mile and cross the bar, as day is
breaking. Up runs the sail and away you
go, the treacherous land breeze wooing you on
to your fate. And now you glide through a
whole fleet of fishing canoes standing out to sea,
and now you lose sight of Negombo, and at about
twelve or one you reach the hospitable home of
the district judge of Chilaw, and all has gone