Page 208 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

Locli took the opportunity of visiting Elephants’ Island, which
he had not seen before. He found the underground temples dis­
appointing, and not as impressive as the much larger eaves at
Malta, or the galleries tinder the rock of Gibraltar. He did, how­
ever, admire ‘the elaborate workmanship in the carving of figures
and animals, which had withstood the rude hand of time, and the
ruder hands of the Portuguese and the Mohammedans, which
strike one with wonder and almost admiration for the forgotten
people who constructed these temples’. He was, perhaps, more
enthusiastic about the fish and the fruit in Bombay, particularly
the mangoes, and the black and white pomphret, a fish which, he
says, ‘very much in taste resembles the John Dory, and in appear­
ance not unlike the Bream of the Mediterranean’.
On October 27th, the Eden made sail out of Bombay harbour,
bound for Trincomalcc, carrying thirty-five tons of iron ballast
to be landed at Cochin, where they anchored on November 6th.
‘I here found my old acquaintances, Mr. and Mrs. Schuller, in
good health, the former occupied with his contract of building
two small frigates, for which the Eden had brought the ballast
from Bombay.’ Loch met another old friend at Cochin. Adey,
‘the little Greek’, who had been his interpreter in the Gulf, had
by some means persuaded the Bombay Government to appoint
him to supervise the building of the two frigates, though it seems
unlikely that Adey knew anything about ship-building!
The Eden left Cochin on November 7th, but owing to contrary
winds and currents, it was not until the 28th that she reached
Ceylon. At Point dc Galle ‘the ship’s company were occupied
in receiving wood and water from the shore, by boats from the
harbour, a most tiresome and tedious method, nor was it in my
power to get them to bestir themselves, so it was December 2nd
1821 before the Eden sailed’. As they passed Dondra Head, a
canoe came alongside with an enormous sword fish lashed to the
craft. Loch bought it, and found that it measured eighteen feet
six inches. ‘I had part of the fish dressed for dinner, and found
that it tasted exceedingly like Bonetta, the rest of the fish, I
directed to be served out to the various messes, to the no small
joy of the men.’ Sailors in the ships in the Gulf, even in the
hottest time of the year, lived mainly on salt beef, pork, plum
pudding and pea soup, only very rarely were they given fresh
vegetables, so fresh fish was a welcome change.
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