OUR VISIT TO THE NICOBARS 



Originally the natives of 

 the Nicobar Islands lived 

 in round, hive-shaped huts 

 on piles, but under Euro- 

 pean influence some of these 

 have been replaced by qua- 

 drilateral buildings built 

 on piles. 



Bille, though why I cannot say, because betel-chewing is still comnrion 

 and dental care is unlikely. 



The village of Nankowry, where I landed with a collecting party, 

 stands in a small grove of coconut palms. Coconuts form the principal 

 food, and as the coconut palm (at least in the more southerly islands) 

 grows only along the coasts, all the villages are close to the shore. The 

 forest began just at the back of the village. It was astonishingly luxurious, 

 consisting" of a great variety of trees all densely tangled with lianes and 

 overgrown with epiphytic ferns and orchids. Many of the lianes were 

 extremely thorny, and as the ground was very wet and clayey as well 

 as thickly strewn with projecting roots, it was difficult to make headway, 

 though native boys guided us along some beaten tracks. In the hot, humid, 

 and stagnant air we were soon drenched in sweat. In this rain forest it 

 was easier to understand that the climate could be unhealthy than it had 

 been in the open sound. But we had all been more than usually careful 

 to take our daily anti-malaria pill, though I must add that neither here 

 nor anywhere else in the Nicobars did I notice a single mosquito, a fact 

 probably connected with the time of our visit in the relatively dry reason 

 at the end of the north-east monsoon period. 



We had not gone far when the paths came to an end and all further 

 advance was impossible. The scientists of the old Galathea had met with 

 exactly the same difficulty when they had tried to penetrate into the 

 interior. Now, as then, the native living-space seems to be a narrow coastal 

 belt; they never go into the forests, all communication between the villages 

 being either along the coast or by sea. 



On our morning expedition we succeeded in bringing down a beautiful 



