The beaches are covered with a wondrous diversity of animal and vegetable
growths thrown up and discarded by the tide. Seaweed of strange varieties, and
of every fantastic shape and texture, the round balls of fibrous grass, like
gigantic thistledowns, which scurry before the light breeze, as though endued
with life, the white oval shells of the cuttle-fish, and the shapeless hideous
masses of dead medusæ, all lie about in extricable confusion on the sandy shores
of the East Coast.
In the sea itself all manner of fish are found; the great sharks, with their
shapeless gashes of mouth set with the fine keen teeth; the sword-fishes with
their barred weapons seven and eight feet long; the stinging ray, shaped like a
child's kite, with its rasping hide and its two sharp bony prickers set on its long
tail; the handsome tĕnggîri, marked like a mackerel, the first of which when
taken are a royal perquisite on the Coast; the little smelts and red-fish; the
thousand varieties that live among the sunken rocks, and are brought to the
surface by lines six fathoms long; the cray-fish, prawns, and shrimps; and the
myriad forms of semi-vegetable life that find a home in the tepid tropic sea, all
these, and many more for which we have no name, live and die and prey upon
each other along the eastern shores of the Peninsula.
Here may be seen the schools of porpoises—which the Malays name 'the
racers'—plunging through the waves, or leaping over one another with that ease
of motion, and that absence of all visible effort, which gives so faint an idea of
the pace at which they travel. Yet when a ship is tearing through the waters at
the rate of four hundred miles a day, the porpoises play backwards and forwards
across the ploughing forefoot of the bow, and find no difficulty in holding their
own. Here, too, is that monster fish which so nearly resembles the shark that the
Malays call it by that name, with the added title of 'the fool.' It lies almost
motionless about two fathoms below the surface, and when the fisher folk spy it,
one of their number drops noiselessly over the side, and swims down to it.
Before this is done it behoves a man to look carefully, and to assure himself that
it is indeed the Fool, and not his brother of the cruel teeth who lies down below
through the clear water. A mistake on this point means a sudden violent
commotion on the surface, a glimpse of an agonised human face mutely
imploring aid, the slow blending of certain scarlet patches of fluid with the
surrounding water, and then a return to silence and peace, and the calm of an
unruffled sea. But if it is indeed the Fool that floats so idly below them, the
boatmen know that much meat will presently be theirs. The swimmer cautiously
approaches the great lazy fish, which makes no effort to avoid him. Then the