The surf at Madras consists of two distinct lines of breakers on the beach, running parallel to each other and to the shore.  These foaming ridges are caused by a succession of waves curling over and breaking upon bars or banks, formed probably by the reflux action of the sea carrying the sand outwards.  The surf itself, unquestionably, owes its origin to the long sand of the ocean-swell coming across the Bay of Bengal, a sweep of nearly five hundred miles, from the coasts of Arracan, the Malay peninsula, and the island of Sumatra.  This huge swell is scarcely perceptible in the fathomless Indian sea; but when the mighty oscillation reaches the shelving shores of Coromandel, its vibrations are checked by the bottom.  The mass of waters, which up to this point had merely sunk and risen, that is, vibrated without any real progressive motion, is then driven forwards to the land, where, from the increasing shallowness, it finds less and less room for its “wild waves’ play,” and finally rises above the general level of the sea in threatening ridges.  I know few things more alarming to nautical nerves than the sudden and mysterious “lift of the swell,” which hurries a ship upwards when she has chanced to get too near the shore, and when, in consequence of the deadness of the calm, she can make no way to seaward, but is gradually hove nearer and nearer to the roaring surge.

At last, when the great ocean-wave approaches the beach, and the depth of water is much diminished, the velocity of so vast a mass sweeping along the bottom, though greatly accelerated, becomes inadequate to fulfil the conditions of the oscillation, and it has no resource but to curl into a high and toppling wave.  So that this moving ridge of waters, after careering forwards with a front high in proportion to the impulse behind, and for a length of time regulated by the degree of abruptness in the rise of the shore, at last dashes its monstrous head with a noise extremely like thunder along the endless coast.

Often, indeed, when on shore at Madras, have I lain in bed awake, with open windows, for hours together, listening, at the distance of many a league, to the sound of these waves, and almost fancying I could still feel the tremour of the ground, always distinctly perceptible near the beach.  When the distance is great, and the actual moment at which the sea breaks ceases to be distinguishable, and when a long range of coast is within hearing, the unceasing roar of the surf in a serene night, heard over the level plains of the Carnatic shore, is wonderfully interesting.

Any attempt to pass the surf in an ordinary boat is seldom thought of.  I remember hearing of a naval officer who crossed once in his jolly-boat in safety, but on a second trial he was swamped, and both he and his crew well-nigh drowned.  The masullah boats of the country resemble nothing to be seen elsewhere.  They have flat bottoms, perpendicular sides, and abruptly pointed ends, being twelve or fourteen feet long by