Ferocious Natives. — Survey of Nangkauri Harbour. 6i 



after having plundered tliem of everything. So strong is 

 this feeling that the natives of the rest of the Nicobar group, 

 according to their own rej)ort, refuse to have anything to do 

 with this ferocious set, and could not by any means be in- 

 duced to accompany us in their canoes as far as Ulala Cove. 

 The frigate lay five days in Nangkauri harbour, until the 

 soundings and general survey of this large bay with its 

 numerous branches had been completed, when, on the morn- 

 ing of the 11th March, she sailed, with a fresh breeze from 

 N.W., through the western entrance, which is scarcely a 

 hundred fathoms wide, by fourteen in depth, and is marked 

 by two rocky pinnacles. Directly opposite lies the island of 

 Katchal, thickly wooded to the water-edge, and stretch- 

 ing out long and low, without any marked elevation above 

 sea-level. We now sailed in between these islands of Katchal 

 and Kamorta in a northerly direction towards the islands of 

 Teressa and Bampoka. On the W. side of Kamorta a num- 

 ber of villages were visible ; on the N.W. we perceived at 

 several spots natural meadows, while hereabouts the land 

 gradually culminated into the highest point of the island, — a 

 conical hill, rising not very far from the shore, almost entirely 

 without trees, except where near the summit a number of 

 bushes and shrubs nestled in a sort of hollow. Three days 

 were now lost in unsuccessful attempts to make head-way 

 against wind and tide, so that for four mortal days we were 

 tossed about in full view of Bampoka, Teressa, and Cliowra, 

 never indeed above twenty miles distant, yet utterly unable to 



