1 4 Voyage of the Novara. 



and instructed, by means of a document drawn up in tlie 

 English and Danish languages, on the subject of their duties, 

 which consisted principally in hoisting the Danish Standard 

 on the arrival of foreign shijDS in the harbour of Nangkauri.* 



After the decease of Christian VIII., the Danish Govern- 

 ment, in consequence of the violent political agitations of 

 the period, did not show itself disposed to make practical use 

 of their possession of the Nicobar Islands by any lasting 

 colonization, but on the contrary in the year 1848 dispatched 

 the royal corvette Valhjrien to the Archipelago, to bring 

 away the flag and batons, f 



In consequence of this, according to " Thornton's Gazet- 

 teer of India," the chiefs of the island of Kar-Nicobar hoisted 

 the English flag, and through certain English merchants 

 resident in Moulmein, expressed a wish to be permitted to 



* The results of this voyage of discovery are embodied partly in a work in two 

 volumes : " Steen Bille's account of the voyage of the corvette Galatea, round the 

 world " (Copenhagen, Leipzig, 1852), partly in a Geographical sketch of the Nicobar 

 Islands, with special remarks upon Geology, by Dr. H. Rink (Copenhagen, 1847): 

 there will be likewise found in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, under 

 the heading " Nicobar Islands," and at p. 261 of the third volume of the " Journal 

 of the Indian Archipelago," under the title " Sketches at the Nicobars," a variety of 

 valuable contributions to our stock of knowledge respecting this island group. In 

 addition, Mr. A. E. Zhishmann, Professor in the Imperial Royal Academy of Com- 

 merce and Navigation at Trieste, pubHshed, in anticipation of the projected visit of 

 the Novara to this Archipelago, a valuable historico-geographical sketch, entitled, 

 "The Nicobar Islands " (Trieste, Printing Office of the Austrian Lloyds, 1857), 

 which appeared at the same time in the Transactions of the Imp. Roy. Geographical 

 Society for 1857. 



t Vide, "Indian PoUtical Dispatches," of 1st February, 1848: also the " Ham- 

 burger Correspondent," of 30th August, 1848, and " Friend of India," for 1853, p. 

 455. 



