82 



HARDWICKE'S'SCIENCE-GOSSIP, 



places forms extensive reefs, usually so steep and 

 sudden as to be most dangerous of approach. The 

 three largest, called respectively North, Middle, 

 and South Andamans, are only separated from each 

 other by narrow straits, which are not navigable at 

 low water ; and hence they commonly bear the one 

 general designation of Great Andaman, in contra- 

 distinction to Little Andaman, the name given to 

 the southernmost of the four, which is divided 

 from the others by the broad, deep channel 0/ 

 Duncan Passage. 



The larger islands of the group are said to 

 possess many good harbours and anchorages, as 

 well as an abundance of fresh water,* but very 

 little is known about them, as they are not often 

 visited, chiefly, I imagine, in consequence of the 

 danger of their coral reefs and the inhospitality of 

 their inhabitants, a woolly-headed, savage race, 

 whose origin has been for some time, and is still, 

 I believe, a puzzle to ethnologists. 



Nature has everywhere scattered her beauties 

 over this region with a lavish hand, and some of 

 the smaller rocks and islets are said to be lovely as 

 a fairy dream. 



Many years agof the Honourable East-India 

 Company formed a settlement at Port Cornwallis, 

 a noble harbour of the north island, but it was 

 soon afterwards^ abandoned on account of its 

 extreme unhealtbiness, and, since then, until the 

 establishment of the present penal colony at Port 

 Blair, where the interest of the group is now 

 centred, the Andamans were left to the unrestrained 

 dominion of wild and unfettered nature. 



Port Blair is a large, irregularly-shaped bay or 

 inlet at the south-eastern end of the Great Anda- 

 man, indenting the coast to the westward, and then 

 bending downwards to the south. Within it are 

 most of the settlements of the colony, but the 

 chief station is the little island of Ross, which 

 lies athwart the entrance of the harbour, and, not- 

 withstanding its small size, contains nearly all the 

 principal public 'buildings, including the church, 

 Government House, and the barracks. 



Ross Island is a somewhat bold and rather pic- 

 turesque triangular mass of rock, consisting, ac- 

 cording to Mr. Ball,§ of bluish-grey limestone, 

 with interbedded layers of argillaceous shales, 

 rising at its highest point to 195 feet above the sea, 

 and covering an area of about one-third of a square 

 mile ; its length being nearly 1,700 yards, and its 

 greatest breadth— in the centre, where it runs out 

 abruptly into a long, projecting point— rather less 

 than the same number of feet. Mr. Ball remarks 

 that, owing to the great inclination of the strata, 

 and other causes, there is considerable risk of 



* Rosser and Imray's " Sailing Directions." 



t 1791. t 1796. 



t "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," xxxix. 232. 



destructive landslips; and if some precautionary 

 measures are not adopted, the eventual stability of 

 the island itself may be endangered, by the removal 

 of stones from the face of the cliff for building 

 purposes, and the disintegration of the exposed 

 surface by the sea and other natural influences. 



The indigenous vegetation of Ross has almost 

 entirely given place to ornamental and useful 

 plants, introduced from India, the Malayan Penin- 

 sula, and the larger islands. Amongst the trees 

 are cocoa-nut palms — which have probably been 

 brought from the Cocos, as they do not appear to 

 be anywhere natives of the Andamans proper- 

 oranges and lemons, with other species of Ciirus ; 

 the Bullock's-heart {Anona reticulata), custard- 

 apples {A)iO)ia squamosa), guavas {Psidium pomi- 

 ferum et pyriferum), acacias of two or three kinds, 

 including the fragrant A. farnesiana, Agati grandi- 

 flora. Cassia fistula, the Mango {Mangifera iiidica), 

 the Plantain {Musa paradisiaca), and the Durian 

 {Durio zibethinus). There are also numbers of 

 small and beautiful trees of Mesua ferrea, a noble 

 and gigantic Calophyllum inophyllum near the Com- 

 missariat office, and, round the coast, occasional 

 fine specimens of the common screw-pine {Pan- 

 danus vei-us). Besides these, many flowering plants 

 and a number of so-called weeds, with ten or twelve 

 species of grasses, have followed the footsteps of 

 settlement and cultivation, all of which seem to 

 thrive and flourish in the genial climate of this surf- 

 lashed outlying sentinel of Port Blair. 



Peacocks of both species {Pavo cristatus et 

 viuticus), as well as the common Indian crow 

 {Corvus splendens, Estrelda amandiva, Acridotheres 

 tristis etfuscus, and Palceornis torquatus), have been 

 introduced since the formation of the colony ; but 

 the amaduvats have disappeared, and the prevailing 

 form of Corvus now seems to be C. andamunensis, 

 though C. ciilminatus is also found. 



Various genera and species of fishes— many of 

 them brilliantly coloured— are abundantly repre- 

 sented in the blue waters of the bay ; and rare and 

 beautiful creatures constantly reward the researches 

 of the malcologist, even on the shores of Ross 

 itself; but my personal experience does not extend 

 to either of the branches of natural science which 

 include these denizens of the deep, and I must 

 refer those desirous of information on both points 

 to the papers scattered over the Journals of the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal, and Surgeon-Major 

 Day's article on the Fishes of the Andaman Islands, 

 in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of 

 London for 1870. 



The sea was curling up into white-lipped wavelets 

 one day in the beginning of November, 1871, when, 

 accompanied by a brother officer, I crossed the bay 

 en route to Mount Harriet, a hill overlooking the 

 harbour, and easy of access from Hope Town, which 

 is a little native village situated in a cove to the 



