Native Villages. — A Forest Scene. i^T) 



At all these festivals the natives assemble in the various 

 villages, and at these seasons spend days and weeks with each 

 other. Earlier visitors to Kar-Nicobar estimate the nmnber 

 of villages on the island at about six or seven only. The 

 natives on the other hand gave us the names of the following 

 thirteen : Arrong (or Arrow), Saoui, Moose, Lapate, Kinmai, 

 Tapoimai, Chukchuitche, Kiukiuka, Tamalu, Paka, Malacca, 

 Koniios, and Kankena, which all together would hardly 

 number much above 100 huts, and about 800 or 900 in- 

 habitants. 



Southward of our anchorage we fell in with a small stream, 

 which near its embouchure on the beach was lost in a sand- 

 bank. Sonie of the members of the Expedition explored it in 

 a very small flat-bottomed boat, a Venetian gondola, which 

 was transported across the bar in order to admit of its being 

 sculled up the river. At first it was found to be about 2|- 

 feet deep, by about 12 to 14 yards in width ; the general 

 direction of its very sinuous course being towards E.S.E. All 

 around the forest presented a scene to which perhaps only the 

 fantastic whimsicality of certain theatrical forest sceneries 

 might furnish a dim resemblance. Along the steep bank of 

 the river rose to a height of nearly 1 00 feet the slender Nibong 

 palm, adorned with blossoms and clusters of fruit, and close 

 adjoining the graceful Catechu palm. Gigantic forest-trees, 

 with thick squat trunks, extended their shady masses of foliage 

 far over the stream ; screw-pines towering up from the scaffold- 

 like arrangement of their numerous roots, were reflected fr'om 



VOL. II. D 



