216 NICOBAR ISLANDS AND ABORIGINES 



on these islands, and incorporated themselves with the people 

 they found there. 



In this way, not only would the nature of the hair, colour of 

 the skin, and occasional definiteness of feature, be accounted for, 

 but the aborigines would be left as we now find them, unreduced 

 in height, while mixture with the Andamanese would probably 

 have the effect of lessening their stature. 



Furthermore, I have, since my acquaintance with these people, 

 occasionally met Tamils, whom, if I had seen similarly garbed in 

 the forests of Great Nicobar, I believe I should have been unable 

 to distinguish from Shom Peri.* 



On the other hand, they much resemble, in appearance and 

 mode of life, descriptions of many of the primitive Malayans who 

 have intermixed with Negritoes. Of these the Kubus of Sumatra 

 are an instance,f and of the Jakuns of Johore, who are believed to 



appears to have been for ages before the arrival of Europeans the great mart 

 for the Telingu traders, who, probably as early as 2000 B.C., carried from 

 the Malay Peninsula the tin used by the Egyptians in making their bronze 

 implements. 



* " Commercial intercourse was maintained from a very early date between 

 the South of India and the trading towns which formed the emporia of the 

 spice islands, notably Johor, Singapore, and Malacca. When the Portuguese, 

 at the commencement of the sixteenth century, first visited these places, they 

 were amazed at the concourse of foreign vessels assembled there. When this 

 intercourse began it is impossible to say, but it was probably much earlier than 

 the above. Snouck-Hurgronje, writing of Acheh, says that the settlement of 

 Klingsfrom Southern India in that country is of great antiquity ; and that the 

 Tamils were the leaders in this commercial enterprise in Malaya is clearly 

 shown by the pure Tamil words, — chiefly connected with commerce, though 

 not altogether so, — which have found their way into Malay. . . . The Malay 

 for ' ship,' kapal, is pure Tamil . . . the pure Tamil padagu, ' boat,' may 

 reasonably be taken to be the parent of the Malay prahu. If this be so, it 

 would seem as if the Tamils first introduced the Malays to even the most 

 elementary navigation, and, as they gave them kapal, taught them to 'go 

 down to the sea in ships.' . . . They do not seem to have settled down or 

 intermixed with the Malays to any great extent, — not certainly so much as in 

 Acheh, where considerable colonies of Tamils took up their abode. Their 

 object being merely commerce, they went as they came, returning year by 

 year as the monsoon favoured." — "Southern India and the Straits," W. A. 

 O'SuUivan, yi7«r. Straits Branch Royal Asiatic Soc, No. 36, July 1901. 



t Vide pp. 235, 236, of A Naturalisfs Wanderings in the Eastern Archi- 

 pelago, by H. O. Forbes ; London, Sampson Low, 1885, 



