172 ANDAMAN ISLANDS AND INHABITANTS 



that of Hindustan and India proper — a coincidence which can 

 be partly explained by the insular climate and difference of soil. 



The forests produce valuable woods, which can be used for 

 many trade purposes — furniture ; ship, boat and house building ; 

 railway carriages and sleepers ; paving blocks, boxes, gun- 

 carriages and stocks, pianos, etc. ; and as profitable minor 

 products, there are canes for furniture, rattans for walking-sticks, 

 and gurjan oil. Some of the woods can be obtained in 

 extremely large quantities ; all possibly in sufficiency for any 

 trade that may arise with the islands. 



Palms abound ; the banian and padouk, that resembles 

 mahogany ; marble-wood, of a black, mottled appearance ; satin- 

 wood ; and the iron tree, which turns the edge of an axe, are all 

 found in the forests, in beautiful confusion with cotton-trees, 

 screw-pines, and arborescent euphorbias, and with large clumps 

 of bamboos, 30 and 40 feet high ; while all round the coasts, 

 mangroves, the most satisfactory of firewoods, give shelter to 

 lovely orchids. 



A very conspicuous feature of the forests is the distribution 

 (apart from the strictly littoral vegetation) into evergreen forest, 

 very full of large gurjan trees {Dipterocarpece), and a leaf-shedding 

 forest, containing a large proportion of padouk {Pterocarpus 

 dalhergioides)^ or into a mixture of these two types. 



The great peculiarity of the Andaman flora is that, with the 

 exception of the Cocos Islands, which are covered with them, 

 and thence indeed derive their name, no coconut palms naturally 

 propagated are found in the Archipelago.* This is the more 

 strange when it is remembered that all the shores of the Bengal 

 Sea are the home of this tree, and that it simply teems in all 

 the islands of the Nicobar group to the south. During the past 

 thirty-five years advantage has been taken of trips in the Station 

 steamer (or by other means) to plant coconuts at suitable 



* The absence of this tree has doubtless had as much to do with the 

 isolation in which the aborigines have lived as the hostility of the latter, for 

 the islands produce little else than rattans and trepang — which would necessitate 

 arduous collecting — to induce native traders to visit them. 



