72 Voyage of the No vara. 



wards noon a pretty smart shower of rain fell, the first for six 

 months. Several of the natives came off in their canoes, and 

 brought fowls, eggs, cocoa-nuts, and various other fruits, as 

 also monkeys and parrots. Rupees, Englisli shillings and six- 

 pences, were evidently not unknown to them, as they greatly 

 preferred these in exchange to mere toys and' showy articles. 

 On the 22nd we made an excursion to a bay on the island 

 of Great Nicobar or Sambelong. All that portion of the coast 

 lying opposite our anchorage was quite uninhabited, evi- 

 dently in consequence of the entire absence at this point of 

 the cocoa-palm, whereas on the west coast there are several 

 good-sized villages. Unfortunately, however, these lay at far 

 too great a distance from the frigate to permit of an excursion 

 being made tliither. As our boat, after an hour's rowing, 

 approached the little bay, we perceived at the mouth of a 

 small creek the singular spectacle of a dead mangrove forest. 

 Some great storm had apparently thrown up a sand-drive 

 here, so as to cut off the supply of sea-water even at full tide. 

 As tlie mangrove only flourishes in salt or brackish water, it 

 liad thus been deprived of its vital elemeut, and the trees had 

 accordingly perished in the fresh water. But the lofty stems 

 still stood, withered and blighted, a ghastly garden of death 

 amidst delicious green peaks covered with forest. As the sun 

 rose, a white vapour lay like a winding-sheet over the dead 

 swamp : one felt the uncomfortable sensation of being in a 

 place where miasmata were poisoning the air, while the soil 

 was generating death. The rigid skeletons of these trees recall 



