The natives steer with short paddles, and continue an incredibly long time at this most exhausting work, as we must conceive it to be. And yet they are to appearance a feeble race, except that the muscular system of the upper part of the body is remarkably developed.
The dress of these people is remarkably simple, and usually consists only of a piece of coloured linen cloth or calico, which, worn short like a woman's petticoat, is thrown single-fold round the loins.
The pilot, though he could only make himself intelligible in broken English, speedily came to a good understanding, and offered to sell us bananas, pine-apples, and cocoa-nuts, as also Ceylon jewels, the latter of which he carried on his person, secured in a parti-coloured cotton belt. This reminded us that we were nearing the shores of the country in which costly stones are found, but precisely on that account, as was natural, our speculative pilot found but a poor market for his wares.
Off the coast we caught a shark 7 feet long, and 135 lbs. weight--a rather juvenile specimen--whose teeth, which we examined, were already strong and sharp enough to seize a man, and strip the flesh off him. Also a number of large dolphins and other fish, sported in the dead water under the frigate's stern, and provided plentiful employment for the harpoon and the rod. Presently we found ourselves within six miles of the land, when a large number of pirogues forthwith came swarming about us, all of a construction similar to the pilot boat, and each manned by four half-naked bronze natives. These offered fruits for sale, especially magnificent, gigantic clusters of banana. On one such cluster we counted, arranged in five rows, one over the other, not less than 175 bananas.
On the 8th January, we anchored in the unpicturesque haven of Point de Galle, surrounded by groves of cocoa-nut palms, directly opposite the lighthouse tower, and in a fine quartz sand bottom of 16-1/2 fathoms (103 feet English). All large ships, that only intend remaining a short time, anchor in the open roadstead, the entrance into the inner harbour being rather difficult, owing to numerous coral reefs. In the roads also lay the English frigate _Shannon_, from which, in the absence of her captain, the first lieutenant immediately came on board the _Novara_, and in the handsomest manner put his services at our disposal.