ullah boats, are much
employed as messengers to the ships in the roads, even in the worst
weather. I remember one day being sent with a note for the commanding
officer of the flag-ship, which Sir Samuel Hood was very desirous
should be sent on board; but as the weather was too tempestuous to
allow even a masullah boat to pass the surf, I was obliged to give it
to a catamaran man. The poor fellow drew off his head a small
skull-cap, made apparently of some kind of skin, or oil-cloth, or
bladder, and having deposited his despatches therein, proceeded to
execute his task.

We really thought, at first, that our messenger must have been drowned
even in crossing the inner bar, for we well-nigh lost sight of him in
the hissing yeast of waves in which he and his catamaran appeared only
at intervals, tossing about like a cork. But by far the most difficult
part of his task remained after he had reached the comparatively
smooth space between the two lines of surf, where we could observe him
paddling to and fro as if in search of an opening in the moving wall
of water raging between him and the roadstead. He was watching for a
favourable moment, when, after the dash of some high wave, he might
hope to make good his transit in safety.

After allowing a great many seas to break before he attempted to cross
the outer bar, he at length seized the proper moment, and turning his
little bark to seaward, paddled out as fast as he could. Just as the
gallant fellow, however, reached the shallowest part of the bar, and
we fancied him safely across, a huge wave, which had risen with
unusual quickness, elevated its foaming crest right before him,
curling upwards many feet higher than his shoulders. In a moment he
cast away his paddle, and leaping on his feet, he stood erect on his
catamaran, watching with a bold front the advancing bank of water. He
kept his position, quite undaunted, till the steep face of the breaker
came within a couple of yards of him, and then leaping head foremost,
he pierced the wave in a horizontal direction with the agility and
confidence of a dolphin. We had scarcely lost sight of his feet, as he
shot through the heart of the wave, when such a dash took place as
must have crushed him to pieces had he stuck by his catamaran, which
was whisked instantly afterwards, by a kind of somerset, completely
out of the water by its rebounding off the sandbank. On casting our
eyes beyond the surf, we felt much relieved by seein