ABSTRACT
The east eoast of Little Mala is very forbidding, good harbours are few and the trade wind blows straight in for at least seven months of the year. The tides run strong, and the current setting against the wind produces a nasty short sea which makes boat or canoe travelling very unpleasant. At Christmas time there are the veritable halcyon days, when everything is stilled. It is the broken period between the two seasons. Voyages are undertaken overseas and long-promised visits are made. Then the summer season sets in and the wind veers to the north, and the sea becomes rough again, with a long oily swell that betokens heavy weather further west. It is not till March that the coast becomes really calm, the west and the south-west winds setting off the shore.
