c. 1580.—"... where (Negapatam) they cannot land anything but in the Maçules of the same country."—Primor e Honra, &c., f. 93.
c. 1582.—"... There is always a heavy sea there (San Thomé), from swell or storm; so the merchandise and passengers are transported from shipboard to the town by certain boats which are sewn with fine cords, and when they approach the beach, where the sea breaks with great violence, they wait till the perilous wave has past, and then, in the interval between one wave and the next, those boatmen pull with great force, and so run ashore; and being there overtaken by the waves they are carried still further up the beach. And the boats do not break, because they give to the wave, and because the beach is covered with sand, and the boats stand upright on their bottoms."—G. Balbi, f. 89.
1673.—"I went ashore in a Mussoola, a Boat wherein ten Men paddle, the two aftermost of whom are Steersmen, using their Paddles instead of a Rudder. The Boat is not strengthened with Knee-Timbers, as ours are; the bended Planks are sowed together with Rope-Yarn of the Cocoe, and calked with Dammar (see [DAMMER]) (a sort of Resin taken out of the Sea), so artificially that it yields to every ambitious Surf."—Fryer, 37.
[1677.—"Mesullas." See [MUCOA].]
1678.—"Three Englishmen drowned by upsetting of a Mussoola boat. The fourth on board saved with the help of the Muckwas" (see [MUCOA]).—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., Aug. 13. Notes and Exts., No. i. p. 78.
1679.—"A Mussoolee being overturned, although it was very smooth water and no surf, and one Englishman being drowned, a Dutchman being with difficulty recovered, the Boatmen were seized and put in prison, one escaping."—Ibid. July 14. In No. ii. p. 16.
[1683.—"This Evening about seven a Clock a Mussula coming ashoar ... was oversett in the Surf and all four drowned."—Pringle, Diary, Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. ii. 54.]
1685.—"This morning two Musoolas and two Cattamarans came off to ye Shippe."—Hedges, Diary, Feb. 3; [Hak. Soc. i. 182].
1760.—"As soon as the yawls and pinnaces reached the surf they dropped their graplings, and cast off the masoolas, which immediately rowed ashore, and landed the troops."—Orme, iii. 617.
1762.—"No European boat can land, but the natives make use of a boat of a particular construction called a Mausolo," &c.—MS. Letter of James Rennell, April 1.