THE NICOBARESE AND CHRISTIANITY 63 



The natives are very expert in opening them with the ddo. 

 Holding the nut in the palm of the left hand, they slash off a 

 portion of the husk, toss it round and remove another slice, 

 until, with three or four cuts, the tender shell at the upper end 

 is exposed, and only requires a slight tap to be broken through 

 and allow the delicious water inside to reveal itself with a 

 spurt. 



The life of the Nicobarese is full of curious observances and 

 ceremonies, of which, perhaps, no man knows more than 

 Mr Solomon, who has spent five years among the people, and 

 is engaged in the preparation of a vocabulary of their 

 language. 



In his capacity as catechist, he has not succeeded in converting 

 any of his adult neighbours to Christianity, although one or 

 two are occasionally present at his Sunday services. We met 

 with one proselyte to Mohammedanism among them, but 

 he, having been adopted by a trader when a boy, was taken 

 to the Maldives and spent some years there. The natives as 

 a body are still as averse to foreign influence on this point as 

 they have been in the past, when missionary endeavour — 

 Moravian and Jesuit — time after time met with complete 

 failure. In the second quarter of the last century they expelled 

 two priests of the latter sect from the island, and Captain Gardner, 

 in 185 1, gives an account of the same fate befalling a pair of 

 Moravians.* " Having converted a few natives, disputes arose 

 between these and their heathen countrymen. They were of 

 such a serious nature that it was determined to hold a general 

 council of delegates from every village to consider a remedy 

 for the evil. They came to the conclusion, that, as they had 

 always lived in love and amity with each other before the 

 arrival of the missionaries, with their strange story of the first 

 woman stealing the orange, etc., the obvious remedy was to 

 send them away. Accordingly, the missionaries were waited 

 on, and told respectfully that they must leave at the first 

 opportunity : that the natives were not to be joked with, and 

 * Singapore Revietu, vol. ii. 



