PRODUCTS AND MANUFACTURES 199 



and wool in the first and rawest condition, every other operation 

 being performed on the spot. It provides much of its own leather. 

 " In achieving the results, the officers have had first to learn 

 for themselves as best they could how to turn out the work to 

 hand, and then to teach what they had learnt to the most 

 unpromising pupils that can be imagined, — only about 3 per 

 cent, of the convicts sent there having been previously employed 

 on the work required of them in Port Blair. And they have 

 been hampered all along by the necessities of convict discipline, 

 by the constant release of their men, and their punishment for 

 misconduct. It is under such conditions that the Corps of 

 Artificers and the other convicts have had to be utilised. Never- 

 theless, the roads and drains, the buildings and boats, the 

 embankments and reservoirs, are as good and durable as are 

 the same class of structures elsewhere. The manufactures are 

 sufficient for their purpose, and there are among the taught 

 those who are now skilled in the use of many kinds of machinery. 

 Cultivation is generally fair, and some of it very good. The 

 general sanitation — but here there are peculiar advantages — is 

 literally second to none." * 



First of all the industries of the Andamans is that of timber, 

 and to accelerate and increase it a Steam Tramway has been 

 instituted, and there are now some 14 miles of line connecting 

 the forests with the shores of Port Blair. As a further adjunct, 

 Steam Saw-mills were erected in 1896, and a Forest Department, 

 that employs 500 to 600 men daily under its own officers, not 

 only supplies the Settlement with the whole of its requirements 

 in timber from the local forests, but also exports timber and 

 forest produce to various places in India and Europe. Of 

 these latter exports, rattans and gurjan oil are the chief; other 

 natural products of the islands are trepang — beche - de - mer — 

 tortoiseshell and edible birds' nests, but they are only collected 

 in small quantities. 



* The foregoing information relating to the convict system and the 

 progress of the Settlement is extracted from addresses by the Chief 

 Commissioner (Lieutenant-Colonel R. C. Temple) to the Andaman Com- 

 mission ; vide Supplements, Andaman and Nicobar Gazette, July 1897, and 

 February 1901. 



