go quite naked; the men
wear a narrow cloth; and the women a grass girdle. They are very skilful
in management of their canoes. Some years since there were frightful
disclosures regarding the massacre of the crews of vessels touching at
these islands, and this has led eventually to their occupation by the
Indian Government. Trinkat and Nancouri are the islands which were guilty.
A woman of Trinkat who could speak Malay was examined by Colonel Man, and
she acknowledged having seen nineteen vessels scuttled, after their
cargoes had been plundered and their crews massacred. "The natives who
were captured at Trinkat," says Colonel Man in another letter, "were a
most savage-looking set, with remarkably long arms, and very projecting
eye-teeth."

The islands have always been famous for the quality and abundance of their
"Indian Nuts," i.e. cocos. The tree of next importance to the natives is
a kind of Pandanus, from the cooked fruit of which they express an edible
substance called Melori, of which you may read in Dampier; they have the
betel and areca; and they grow yams, but only for barter. As regards the
other vegetation, mentioned by Polo, I will quote, what Colonel Man writes
to me from the Andamans, which probably is in great measure applicable to
the Nicobars also! "Our woods are very fine, and doubtless resemble those
of the Nicobars. Sapan wood (i.e. Polo's _Brazil_) is in abundance;
coco-nuts, so numerous in the Nicobars, and to the north in the Cocos, are
not found naturally with us, though they grow admirably when cultivated.
There is said to be sandal-wood in our forests, and camphor, but I have
not yet come across them. I do not believe in _cloves_, but we have lots
of the wild nutmeg."[2] The last, and cardamoms, are mentioned in the
_Voyage of the Novara_, vol. ii., in which will be found a detail of the
various European attempts to colonise the Nicobar Islands with other
particulars. (See also _J.A.S.B._ XV. 344 seqq.) [See _Schlegel's
Geog. Notes_, XVI., _The Old States in the Island of Sumatra._--H.C.]

[1] It was a mistake to suppose the name had disappeared, for it is
applied, in the form _Pulo Gaimr_, to the small island above indicated,
in Colonel Versteeg's map to Veth's _Atchin_ (1873). In a map chiefly
borrowed from that, in _Ocean Highways_, August, 1873, I have ventured
to restore the name as _Pulo Gomus_. The name is perhaps (Mal.)
_Gamas_, "hard, rough."

[2] Kurz's _Veget