gS OUR VISIT TO THE NICOBARS 



they had formed an administration of British India; geographically and 

 ethnologically it would have been more natural to unite them with 

 Malaya. And so, by the irony of fate, after fighting so long for her own 

 independence from Imperial rule, India is now herself an Imperialist 

 power. However, our impression of India as a colonial Power was ex- 

 tremely favourable: though it would appear tempting to so overpopulated 

 a country as India to avail herself of these fertile and sparsely populated 

 islands in order to find room for some of her hungry millions, the Indians 

 ■ — - like the British before them — seem generally inclined to leave the 

 natives to themselves apart from affording them protection and humani- 

 tarian aid. Indeed, the first person to board our ship in Nankowry Har- 

 bour was an Indian doctor, who was also the leading civil authority. Dr. 

 Ramanand made a very pleasing impression; he had an excellent com- 

 mand of English, and as he also spoke the native language and was 

 obviously very popular with the natives he was of great assistance to us 

 during our stay. 



Formalities over, our first party went ashore. On each of the two 

 islands there was a small native village consisting of the characteristic huts 

 built on piles, exactly like the pictures in the old Danish accounts. We were 

 at once surrounded by friendly, smiling natives, mostly boys and youths. 

 Of the women we saw very little; and it would seem that the custom of 

 hiding them on the arrival of a strange ship, referred to in all the 

 old accounts, is still maintained. It is a precaution which does not appear 

 to have prevented some intermingling, for physically the population made 

 a somewhat heterogeneous impression, though the Malay type pre- 

 dominated. The men's dress consists, as it did a century ago, of a narrow- 

 cotton loin-cloth with the ends hanging like tails back and front. Sten Bille, 

 giving a detailed account of the natives in his report of the first Galathea 

 Expedition, repeatedly stresses their repulsive appearance, and especially 

 that of the women, whose "ugliness exceeds anything one can imagine". 

 It is a description which I certainly cannot endorse. Many of the men 

 possessed handsome athletic figures, and the young women whom we 

 saw later might be called good-looking even by European standards. 

 Bille was undoubtedly judging them by European ideals, but apart from 

 this some of the "barbaric" customs of his period appear to have been 

 abandoned. It was customary, for example, in those days for the natives 

 to smear their faces in lard and then rub in a bright-red pigment, while 

 the men would invariably have a cigar suspended from their pierced ears. 

 Both these forms of facial adornment seem to have gone. Nor did we 

 find the natives' teeth so badly stained by betel-chewing as reported by 



