164 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



are fe\v and far between '." Such a picture will help to explain 

 the large part played by salt in the folklore and superstitions of 

 so many civilised peoples. " The Romans began their feasts by 

 prayers and libations to the gods. The table was consecrated by 

 placing upon it the images of the Lares and saltcellars. A family 

 salt-holder was kept with great care, and to spill the salt at table 

 was esteemed ominous. The prominence of salt as a religious 

 and social symbol is doubtless due to the fact that it became a 

 necessity to most nations at an early stage of civilization, and 

 that it was a luxury very hard for primitive man to obtain in many 

 parts of the world 2 .'' 



All the faculties are sharpened mainly in the quest of food, 

 and of means to elude the enemy now closing round their farthest 

 retreats in the upland forests. When hard pressed and escape seems 

 impossible, they will climb trees and stretch rattan ropes from 

 branch to branch where these are too wide apart to be reached at 

 a bound, and along such frail aerial bridges women and all will pass 

 with their cooking-pots and other effects, with their babies also 

 at the breast, and the little ones clinging to their mothers' heels. 

 For like the Andamanese they love their women-folk and children , 

 and in this way rescue them from the Malay raiders and slavers. 

 But unless the British raj soon intervenes their fate is sealed. 

 They may slip from the Malays, but not from their own traitorous 

 kinsmen, who often lead the hunt, and squat all night long on the 

 tree-tops, calling one to another and signalling from these look- 

 outs when the leaves rustle and the rattans are heaved across, 

 so that nothing can be done, and another family group is swept 

 away into bondage. 



From their physical resemblance, undoubted common de- 

 scent, and geographical proximity, one might also 

 expect to find some affinity in the speech of the 

 Andaman and Malay Negritoes. But Mr Clifford, almost the only 

 European who has made a special study of the dialects on the 



1 Op. cit. p. 174. 



2 Marie Goldsmith West, The Symbolism of Salt, in Popular Science 

 Monthly, December, 1897, p. 241. The writer refers to Hor. Od. n. 16. 14. 

 A more significative though less known passage occurs in Arnob. n. : Sacras 

 facitis mcnsas salinoniui appositn, ct sinmlacris Dcornin. 



