The fishermen have certain places
secured to them by law, in which they drive immense stakes, usually
the trunks of palm-trees, and between these stakes they fasten their
nets, any damage done to them by passing boats being punishable by a
fine; the navigation of the harbour, to those who wish to visit its
beautiful islands, is, in consequence, rather difficult, and would
scarcely admit of being carried on by those small steamers, which render
every place in the neighbourhood of Calcutta so accessible.
The boats here, with the exception of private yachts, which are not
numerous, are a disgrace to a civilized place. Nothing can be easily
imagined to be worse than the pattamars usually employed for the
conveyance of troops and travellers to distant points; they are dirty,
many so low in the roof that the passengers cannot stand upright in
them, and filled with insects and vermin.
The abundance and cheapness of fish render it the common food of the
lower classes, and consequently its effluvia sometimes pervade the
whole atmosphere. The smell of frying fish, with its accompaniment of
oil, is sufficiently disagreeable; but this is not all; a much more
powerful odour arises from fish drying for future use, while, as it
is commonly spread over the fields and employed as manure, the scents
wafted by the breezes upon these occasions breathe any thing but
perfume.
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