These masoolah-boats may carry from forty to sixty tons; they are made of plank, about two inches in thickness above, and three below, fastened together by means of coir; that is, the fibres of cocoa-nut rinds, passed through small holes pierced along the edges of the several planks, all around each: these planks appear as though sewed together with twine of the above description, and are fastened to battens and sleepers, answering for ribs and floor timbers. At the bottom, planks are laid in the opposite direction of these, which form the vessel, and near the gun-whales, several thwarts are secured across; they passing through the sides, and being firmly pinned in. There is no deck, and the rudder consists of a large kind of oar, rigged out at the stern. At a little distance, the masoolah-boats look like rude imitations of our coal-barges: they row from ten to sixteen oars, and when unladen make more speed than persons accustomed to wherries, or to ships’ pinnaces, would expect; getting through the surf, both coming and going, with amazing facility: though sometimes, owing to letting them swing round, instead of steering head-on, they fill, or overset: but this very rarely happens; and the mere act of ‘swamping’, unless in the first, or outward surf, is not attended with any imminent danger; the next wave generally impelling the boat, and all that it contains, high (but not _dry_,) upon the beach, where it is soon run up out of the water’s way. In order to encourage the boatmen to exert themselves towards saving any Europeans who may be in danger, owing to a masoolah-boat’s upsetting in the surf, the Company allow premiums, generally medals, to such as may prove their title thereto. Several of the Company’s servants, and others, owe their lives to the activity of these people, a few of whom have been enabled to retire upon a very comfortable subsistence allowed to them by those gentlemen they had rescued. It is much to be lamented, that the Company have never been able to adopt the only efficient means of breaking the surf for a few hundreds of yards; namely, by conical caissons, forming an angle in front of the landing place. Nature has done this for the Portugueze at Pernambuco, forming a bar of coral, at the end of which is a battery: the sea at all times breaks with tremendous violence upon the Bar, and sometimes, though very rarely, dashes over the guns. The supposed objection will be, that, owing to the great expanse of the coast of Coromandel, nothing could be made to resist the force of the water. But, in answer to this, I must observe, that Pernambuco is much more exposed than Madras, it being subject to the force of the trade winds, blowing all the year round from the south-west, across that immense, uninterrupted ocean lying between the two continents of Africa and America, while a very strong current at the same time sweeps round, and causes the surf to rise with full as much violence as in any part of the East.