When a vessel is tracked against the stream, it is usual for the _dandies_, or boatmen, to go ashore, each furnished with a club of bamboo, about two feet in length, to which a piece of strong cord is fastened at one end; at the same time, the _ghoon_, or track-rope, is veered out from a pulley in the mast head, or from a block lashed thereto, to as great a length as the situation may demand; commonly, from about seventy to a hundred and fifty yards may suffice, though, in very shoal water, mixed with deeps, or, where the ground is foul, even a greater length may be requisite.
The _ghoon_ is about two inches round, and is made of white rope well laid: if made of tarred rope, it would prove too heavy, and oppose great resistance, by its want of elasticity, to the exertions of the _dandies_, each of whom, fixing the end of his cord to it, and resting the bamboo club over his shoulder, so that it may act, in some measure, as a lever, proceeds at an easy pace, his body leaning well forward, each following at about four feet behind the other. The foremost at the track-rope has a great advantage over his followers; he not being subject to the numerous checks and vibrations occasioned by the frequent impediments, whether bushes, banks, masts of other vessels, &c., which operate very forcibly on those whose cords are attached to that part of the rope in his rear.
The number of _dandies_ at a track-rope may be too many, as well as too few; except when a boat can keep close to the shore, and the _ghoon_ makes but a very small angle from the line of her progress: then, all the power that can be given certainly proves efficient; but, when the angle between the boat’s direction and the rope becomes considerable, it is evident the whole labor falls on a very few of the leading _dandies_; in fact, all but those few are then compelled to liberate their cords from the _ghoon_, otherwise they must be inevitably dragged out into the stream, unless those cords were many fathoms, instead of only four or five feet, in length.
The greater part of the trading boats use a different apparatus for tracking; in them, each _dandy_ is supplied with a fine cord, about as thick as a swan’s quill, made of a fine kind of long grass called _moonje_, which, when wetted, and twisted into this kind of tackle, becomes firm and elastic; though it will not answer for cordage in general. Each _dandy_ has about seventy yards of line, the inner end of which fastens to a stout rope, reeved, the same as the _ghoon_, at the mast-head, and long enough to be let out amply where requisite.