The next day the passengers went ashore; officers full fig; ladies, civilians, and cadets, all in their best attire, crowding the benches of the Massoolah boat, and balancing, and holding on as best they could. Of all sea-going craft, from the canoe of the Greenlander to the line-of-battle-ship, the Massoolah boat is, perhaps, one of the most extraordinary. Imagine a huge affair, something in shape like one of those paper cock-boats which children make for amusement, or an old-fashioned tureen, or the transverse section of a pear or pumpkin, stem and stern alike, composed of light and flexible planks, sewn together with coir, and riding buoyant as a gull on the heaving wave, the sides rising six feet or so above its surface, the huge empty shell crossed by narrow planks or benches, on which, when seated, or rather roosted, your legs dangle in air several feet from the bottom: further, picture in the fore-part a dozen or more spare black creatures, each working an unwieldy pole-like paddle to a dismal and monotonous chant—and you may have some idea of a Massoolah boat and its equipage; the only thing, however, that can live in the tremendous surf that lashes the coast of Coromandel. “Are you all right there, in the Massoolah boat?” shouted one of the ship’s officers. “Ay, ay, sir,” responded a little middy in charge of us. “Cast her off then,” said the voice; and immediately the connecting rope was thrown on board, and off we swung, gently rising and falling on the long undulations, which were soon to assume the more formidable character of bursting surges. As we advance, I honestly confess, though I put a bold face on it, I felt most confoundedly nervous, being under serious apprehensions that one of the many sharks I had just seen would soon have the pleasure of breakfasting on a gentleman cadet, _cote-lettes à la Griffin_, no doubt, if gastronomy ranks as an art amongst that voracious fraternity. On approaching the surf, the boatmen’s monotonous chant quickened to a wild _ulluloo_. We were _in medias res_. I looked astern, and there, at some distance, but in full chase, advanced a curling mountain-billow, opening its vast concave jaws, as if to devour us. On, on it came. “_Ullee! ullee! ullee!_” shouted the rowers; smash came the wave; up flew the stern, down went the prow; squall went the ladies, over canted the major, Grundy, and the ex-resident, while those more fortunate in retaining their seats held on with all the energy of alarm with one hand and dashed the brine from their habiliments with the other. The wave passed, and order a little restored, the boatmen pulled again with redoubled energy, to make as much way as they could before the next should overtake us. It soon came, roaring like so many fiends, and with nearly similar results. Another and another followed, till, at last, the unwieldy bark, amidst an awful bobbery, swung high and dry on the shelving beach; and out we all