130 Voyage of the No vara. 



the islands in those colonial products that are most valu- 

 able, and the enormous quantity of cocoa-nut palms, must, 

 under the impulse of cultivation and industrious habits, 

 speedily make returns in countless tides of prosperity. So 

 far as regards the aboriginal population, of whom there are 

 not above 5000 or 6000 on all the islands, they would ex- 

 perience but little annoyance from the carrying out of such 

 an enterprise. In fact, morally and materially they could 

 only gain from the introduction of a foreign element. At 

 present they are confined to the narrow belt of shore, where 

 grows the cocoa-palm, their sole support. The interior of the 

 island, so prolific in natural wealth of the most varied de- 

 scription, and which would become infinitely more valuable 

 under a proper development of its capabilities, is utterly un- 

 known and valueless to the native. 



Once a settlement were fairly set a-going on the above-men- 

 tioned principles, the inhabitants of the Nicobar Archipelago 

 would be placed under the tutelage of Em-opean civilization, 

 and in their transactions would no longer be exposed to the 

 knavery and caprices of ships' captains. It would be necessary 

 to watch over the natives as over minors, so as not alone to 

 secure for them material benefits, but by liberal sympathetic 

 treatment as the groundwork of their education, gradually to 

 establish that faith whose introduction hitherto, despite numer- 

 ous praiseworthy endeavours in the past as well as the present 

 century, has been doomed to be unsuccessful through a variety 

 of extraneous circumstances. Moreover, the Nicobar Archi- 



