No. 2. J BULGER — THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS. 95 



A VISIT TO PORT BLAIR AND MOUNT HARRIET, 

 ANDAMAN ISLANDS. 



By Lieut.-Colonel George E. Bulger, F.L.S., F.R.lr.S., C.M.Z.S., Etc. 

 Late H. M. 10th Foot. 



In the Bay of Bengal, between the 10th and 14th parallels of 

 north latitude and the 92nd and 94th degrees of east longitude, 

 lie the beautiful tropic islands of the Andamans, known to us 

 since the Indian mutiny chiefly as a penal settlement, but latterly 

 painfully associated in our minds with the mournful tragedy 

 enacted there on the 8th February, 1872. 



The Andamans proper consist of four large islands and a mul- 

 titude of smaller ones, mostly covered with luxuriant forest, and 

 almost everywhere locked in a fringe of coral, which in many 

 places forms extensive reefs, usually so steep and sudden as to 

 be most dangerous of approach. The three largest, called res- 

 pectively 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 designa- 

 tion of Great Andaman, in contradistinction to Little Andaman, 

 the name given to the southernmost of the four, which is divided 

 from the others by the broad, deep channel of 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 iuhospitality of their inhabitants, a 

 woolly-headed, savage race, whose origin has been for some time, 

 and is still, 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 

 lovely as a fairy dream, counterparts of those bright creations of 

 poetic fancy which Tennyson has drawn for us in ' Locksley 

 Hall.' 



" Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, 

 Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise, 

 Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, 

 Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag : 

 Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree- 

 Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea." 



* Kosser and Imray's " Sailing Directions." 



