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Updated: May 12, 2025
As the gunwale of the masullah boat rises three or four feet above the water, the step is a long and troublesome one to make, even by those who are not encumbered with petticoats those sad impediments to locomotion devised by the men, as I heard a Chinaman remark, expressly to check the rambling propensities of the softer sex, always too prone, he alleged, to yield to wandering impulses without such encumbrances!
The return passage from the shore to a ship, in a masullah boat, is more tedious, but less dangerous, than the process of landing. This difference will easily be understood, when it is recollected that in one case the boat is carried impetuously forward by the waves, and that all power of retarding her progress on the part of the boatmen ceases after a particular moment.
It is very interesting to watch the progress of those honest catamaran fellows, who live almost entirely in the surf, and who, independently of their chief purpose of attending the masullah boats, are much employed as messengers to the ships in the roads, even in the worst weather.
I have endeavoured to describe the correct and safe method of riding over the surf on the outer bar upon the back of the wave, a feat in all conscience sufficiently ticklish; but woe betide the poor masullah boat which shall be a little too far in advance of her proper place, so that, when the wave curls over and breaks, she may be pitched head foremost over the brink of the watery precipice, and strikes her nose on the sandbank.
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