Scenery of the interior of Kar-Nicohar. 29 



tliat their families had in their panic fled into the forest, and 

 must starve of hmiger if we should remain long, and so 

 prevent them from returning to their usual abodes. This 

 however was but a hoax. The natives knew well enouerh 

 where their families were Im-king, and provided them with 

 food and drink. This extreme shyness of the female portion 

 of tlie population arises apparently from the incivilities ot 

 which the sailors of the merchant vessels were guilty towards 

 the natives, whose moral feelings and delicacy of mind, con- 

 sidering their low state of civilization, becomes doubly ex- 

 traordinary. 



An attempt to penetrate deeper into the interior of the 

 island was baffled through the obstacles which are inter- 

 posed by the unchecked luxuriance of tropical nature. The 

 vegetation grows densely down to the very sea, which is 

 sejjarated fi'om the rich foliage above only by rocky reefs 

 and narrow dunes of sand, washed by the furious surf. A 

 broad belt of Rhizophor^e^ gigantic Barringtonias^ Pandanus, 

 Areca, and cocoa-palms, encircles the island, to which succeeds 

 a somewhat higher land grown with dense grass and inter- 

 spersed with groups of trees, from which, lastly, spring a few 

 thickly wooded peaks of about 150 to 200 feet in height. 

 Through this girdle it requires the most violent efforts to 

 force one's way, while, on the other hand, it is wholly im- 

 possible, owing to the dense tangle of climbing plants and 

 bamboo, to advance further into the forest over the grass 

 flat, unless a patli be previously cleared with hedge-knives, 



