182 ANDAMAN ISLANDS AND INHABITANTS 



animals were rats ; but the bays abounded with fish and turtle, 

 and water was obtained by sinking wells in the beach. 



In the middle of July, the Flying Fish — the ship that had 

 landed the first settlers — brought a second batch from Moulmein, 

 and the population then consisted of four men, two women, and 

 four children, with a small number of Burmese and a few 

 Lascars. 



Some months passed, and the island remained unvisited ; 

 and the whole story of that time is one of incompetence, laziness, 

 sickness, and starvation. Stores failed ; while food procurable on 

 the island only consisted of turtles, turtles' eggs, fish, and coco- 

 nuts. The settlers were, besides, suffering from dysentery, 

 fever, and other complaints, brought on by an unaccustomed mode 

 of life, in dwellings that were mere hovels, and subjection to the 

 inclemency of the rainy season. Their spirits became depressed, 

 and despair succeeding discontent, they were more like an un- 

 fortunate shipwrecked party than immigrants who had landed 

 to make a new home. Several of the colonists fell a prey to 

 despondency, that in some cases amounted almost to mental 

 derangement. Some of them died, and those who were rescued 

 from that fate were brought away from the island in an utter 

 state of destitution, emaciated in body and almost silly in 

 intellect 



On October 29 the remaining settlers — of whom seven had 

 died — were taken off, and reconveyed to Moulmein by the 

 Company's ship Proserpine!^ 



In 1855, measures were proposed at Calcutta — for the 



Andamans were then an appanage of the East India Company 



— for the repression of the outrages practised by the Andamanese 



on those crews shipwrecked on their shores, and two years later 



— on the conclusion of the Mutiny — it was determined that a 



penal settlement should once more be established in the group ; 



* Since 1879, when the Cocos were transferred from the Commission of the 

 Andamans to that of Burma, several settlements, less unfortunate, have 

 been made in the same island for the purpose of trade in coconuts and 

 timber. There is now a lighthouse on Table Island — the most northerly of 

 the group — where many wild cattle (originally domestic) roam. 



