210 NICOBAR ISLANDS AND ABORIGINES 



it was told me that sometimes a man shall have for an old shirt a 

 good piece of amber." * 



In his East Africa and Malabar,^ Barbosa refers shortly to the 

 Nicobars. " In front of Sumatra, across the Gulf of the Ganges, are 

 five or six small islands, which have very good water and ports for 

 ships : they are inhabited by Gentiles, poor people, they are called 

 Niconbar ; and they find in them very good amber, which they 

 carry thence to Malacca and other ports." 



Captain John Davis, of Arctic fame, the inventor of the 

 " back-staff," the earliest form of quadrant, piloted a Dutch ship 

 to the East Indies, and touched, in 1599, at the Central Nicobars. 

 He wrote that "... the people brought in great store of hens, 

 oranges, lemons, and other fruit, and some ambergris which we 

 bought for pieces of linen cloth and table napkins. These isles 

 are pleasant and fruitful, lowland, and have good road for ships. 

 The people are most base, only living upon fruits and fish, not 

 manuring the ground, and therefore having no rice." \ 



During the reign of Elizabeth, Sir James Lancaster made 

 several voyages to the East Indies, and touched at the Nicobars. 

 Two of his officers, Barker and May, have chronicled a visit to 

 the islands in 1592, in a description that would apply more 

 accurately to the Pulo Wai group. " The islands of Nicobar," 

 says Barker, "we found inhabited with Moors, and after we 

 came to an anchor, the people came aboard us in their canoes 

 with hens, cocos, plantains, and other fruits, and in two days 

 they brought to us royals of plate, giving us them for calicut 

 cloth, which royals they find by diving for them in the sea, which 

 were lost not long before by two Portugal ships which were 

 bound for China and were cast away there. They call in their 

 language the coco, calambe (Malay, klapa) ; the plantain, pison 

 (Mai., pisang) ; a hen, iavi (Mai., ayavi) ; a fish, iccan (Mai., ikati) ; 

 and a hog, babi (Mai., babi) " ; and May, the other writer, says 

 that the natives were in religion Mohammedans. 



* Extractes of Master C<esar Frederike : his Eighteen Veeres' Indian 

 Observations. Purchas : his Pilgrifnes, vol. ii., p. 17 10. 



t Hakluyt Library. 



\ Purchas : his Pilgritncs, vol. i., p. 123. 



