122- Voyage of the Novara. 



Of musical instruments we did not find a single specimen 

 in Kar-Nicobar, whereas on the southern islands there is a 

 six, sometimes a seven-holed flute in use, made of bamboo- 

 cane, which, as we afterwards discovered, had been brought 

 hitlier by the ^Malays ; and also a kind of guitar about two or 

 three feet in length, hollowed out, and with sound-holes in 

 the side, and made of thick bamboo and reed strings. On 

 the whole, however, the Nicobarians seem to be much too 

 apathetic and indifferent a race to have any special predilec- 

 tion for music, singing, or dancing. Accordingly at their 

 monsoon festivals and otlier holiday times, their notion of 

 dancing is limited to hopping round in a circle with arms 

 entwined, while they at the same time keep up a listless hum- 

 ming noise. 



In the case of such a race, which has no civilization or in- 

 dustry of its own, it is out of tlie question to speak of their 

 having any regular industrial occupation in the strict sense of 

 the word. The particular and to them most beneficent plant, 

 which supplies them at once with enough to eat and to drink, 

 at the same time brings them, very reluctantl}^, into contact 

 with civilization, and will yet become a main agent in intro- 

 ducing a knowledge of those necessities and acquaintance 

 with those articles which are the product of a higher grade of 

 civilization alone. The ripe nuts of the cocoa-palm constitute 

 the chief article of export of the Nicobar Islands, and, what 

 is even more imjiortant, supply the stimulus, which already 

 arouses the native to a certain degree of activity, although 



