5H 



NA TURE 



[April 2, 19 dj 



A T 



THE ANDAMANS AND NICOBARS.* 



LTHOUGH much valuable information regarding 

 the two most interesting groups of islands in the 

 Bay of Bengal, known from very early times as the 

 Andamans and Nicobars, has been published in Indian 

 official reports and in scientific papers by officials of 

 the islands, or by visitors to them, there is, so far as 

 we know, no general connected monograph of them. 

 The present volume will be welcomed, therefore, as 

 containing an account of a 

 three months' cruise among 

 them, undertaken, in 1901, by 

 the author's companion and 

 host, Dr. W. L. Abbott, owner 

 of the American schooner 

 vacht Terrapin, of Singapore, 

 to obtain collections of natural 

 history, especially small mam- 

 mals and ethnological objects, 

 for the National Museum, 

 Washington, U.S.A. It is 

 well illustrated with photo- 

 graphs by the author, two 

 maps and a hydrographical 

 chart. We note that many of 

 the ethnological portraits have 

 been taken in full sunshine, 

 and are disfigured by heavy, 

 black shadows. Better results 

 would have been obtained by 

 photographing the subjects in 

 the shade against a dark back- 

 ground, giving full exposure. 



The first part of the book is 

 devoted to the narrative of the 

 cruise, and contains many in- 

 teresting notes and observa- 

 tions upon the different islands 

 visited, their inhabitants, 

 fauna, flora, and physical 

 characteristics. It opens with 

 hints about the equipment and 

 provisioning of a yacht for 

 cruising in Indian seas, also 

 regarding the guns and ammu- 

 nition most suitable for a col- 

 lecting naturalist. Crossing 

 from Mergui early in January, 

 the party first touched at 

 Barren Island, a volcano which 

 appears to be steadily cooling 

 down, and passing through 

 the Quangtung Strait, visited 

 the convict settlement at Port 

 Blair. Then touching at the 

 South Andaman and the 

 Cinques, they went to the 

 north part of the Little_ Anda- 

 man, inhabited by the Onges, 

 who received them well. Here 

 they found large thatched huts, FlG ' I - — Huts 



very different from the palm- 

 leaf shelters used by the natives of the northern 

 isles. 



Leaving the Andamans, they went south to the 

 village of Mus, in Sawi Bav, on Kar Nicobar. They 

 were immediately struck by the entire change in place 

 and people, from the dense forests of the Anda- 

 mans to open grass land and groves of coco-palm, 



1 " In the Andamans and Nicobars " The Narrative of a Cruise in the 

 schooner Terrapin, with Notices of the Islands, their Fauna, Ethnology, 

 &c. By C. Boden Kloss. Pp. xvi + 373. (London: John Murray, 1903.) 

 Price zxs. net. 



and from a little black-skinned, grizzly-haired 

 Negrito race in an exceedingly low plane of existence 

 and of little intellectual capacity, though well made and 

 by no means repulsive in appearance, to a brown-com- 

 plexioned, lank-haired, muscular people of Malay race, 

 of fair height, intelligent and good linguists, almost 

 semicivilised, living in well-built dwellings, cultivating 

 food products, and possessing domesticated animals. 

 The author gives a very interesting description of the 

 village of Mus, and of some peculiar institutions found 



Shorn Pen. (Fr< 



In the Andamans and Nicobars."; 



there ; the public halls for meetings and feasts, the 

 maternitv huts and huts for the dying on the outskirts. 

 They then went to Tiliangchong, a forest-clad, unin- 

 habited island where good collections of birds were 

 made, and on to Trinkat. A week was spent in the 

 beautiful harbour of Nankauri between the Islands of 

 Camorta and Nankauri. A good account is given of 

 the village of Malacca, or Nankauri, and of the cus- 

 toms of the inhabitants, which differ from the Kar 

 Nicobarese. Of the convict settlement at Camorta, on 

 the north side of the harbour, little now remains beyond 



NO. 1744, VOL. 67] 



