280 AN OLD ACCOUNT OF KAR NICOBAR 



I do not remember having seen any of this kind before. Higher 

 up on the shore there were innumerable varieties of blue, black, 

 red, brown, and white corals, among them also the so-called 

 * red organ.' I also found a peculiar kind of very coarse 

 sponge, and many kinds of shells were thrown up very high ; 

 many of them had been thrown into the woods for some little 

 distance. The whole shore was not of a man's height, and it 

 almost immediately sloped down again towards the wood. . . . 



"... As it grew dark I went to one of the hamlets where 

 about twenty houses, most of them with pointed thatched roofs, 

 stood on piles. The principal houses, three in number, were 

 placed in the middle, but each separate from the other. They 

 were built on piles about lo to 12 inches thick, and more than 

 a man's height. Some of them had 24 to 30 of these piles ; 

 they were bamboo, and one side was open, where a bench hung 

 by ropes, large enough to allow two people to sit upon, and 

 so low, that their feet when sitting would touch the ground. 

 The roof of the real dwelling-house was in some cases angularly 

 pointed, in others rounder ; very few showed a long ridge. The 

 access was gained by means of a narrow well-made bamboo 

 ladder, through a square hole, which was wide enough to afford 

 admission for a full-grown man ; the floor consisted of broad 

 sawn planks of unequal length supported by the cross beams ; 

 these beams in their turn resting on the above-mentioned piles. 

 The big houses were divided into storeys, the lower one being 

 as high as two men, the upper one was lower and more like 

 a barn. 



" Round about on the principal rafters, there were some 

 bamboo sticks hardly as thick as the thumb fastened across. 

 This looked very nice ; but there were no windows at all, nor 

 any to replace them, but the light came only through the holes 

 .serving them for door, therefore it was very dark. All their 

 household implements were standing round about, mostly tied 

 to the bamboo ; that which could not be kept in this manner 

 had been put into small boxes, which were one foot long, half 

 a foot wide, and hardly half a foot high, and were provided 



