244 REPORT — 1861. 



In regard to their maladies, the sepoy deposes : — "I never met with any 

 one affected with gonorrhoea, syphilis, itch, piles, small-pox, or goitre ; but 

 I have seen them affected with vomiting, colic, diarrhoea, intermittent fever, 

 headache, ear-ache, toothache, abscesses, rheumatism, catarrh, cough, painful 

 and difficult respiration. The only remedies I have seen used are ' red earth 

 rubbed up with turtle-oil,' a cold infusion of certain aromatic leaves, the 

 wetted leaves being applied to the head or other inflamed parts, and local 

 bleedings by sharp splinters of bottle glass." 



They spin ropes, make wicker baskets, large nets for catching turtle, 

 smaller nets for catching fishes ; and they scoop out their canoes by means 

 of a small kind of adze, tipped by a semicircular blade of iron. Thus, for 

 all their immediate wants, invention has supplied the instruments called 

 for by the nature of the surrounding objects and sources of food. " It is 

 impossible," writes Dr. Mouatt, Inspector- General of Jails, Calcutta, "to 

 imagine any human beings to be lower in the scale of civilization than are 

 the Andaman savages. Entirely destitute of clothing, utterly ignorant of 

 agriculture, living in the most primitive and rudest form of habitations, their 

 only care seems to be the supply of their daily food." Thus the low grade of 

 humanity, hardly raised above that of the brute animal, with the dwarfish 

 stature and dark sooty colour of the Andamaners, have always made a further 

 knowledge of their physical characters peculiarly desirable. 



I am enabled to contribute the present notice of the osteological and dental 

 characters of the Mincopie race, by the opportunity kindly afforded me by 

 Dr. Fred. J. Mouatt, Inspector of Indian Jails, who brought over the bones of 

 an adult male native of the Andamans, which he has since presented to the 

 British Museum. The proportions of the bones indicate a well-formed, robust, 

 adult male of four feet ten inches in height. The bones present a compact 

 sound texture, with the processes, articular surfaces, and places of muscular 

 attachments neatly defined. The cranium (Plates VI. and VII.) is well 

 formed, not exceeding disproportionately in any diameter ; it might be classed 

 with those of the oval type (Plate VII. figs. 1 and 2). The frontal region 

 is rather narrow, but not very low for the size of the cranium ; it recedes or 

 passes by a regular curve from the glabella (Plate VI. g) upward and back- 

 ward to the vertex, v. The frontal, much of the sagittal, and the upper part 

 of the coronal sutures are obliterated. Part of the lambdoidal suture is very 

 complex, and sinks below the level of the contiguous bones at the lower 

 angle and ' additamentum,' /. The alisphenoid (g) joins the parietal (;) on 

 both sides of the head. The glabella is but little prominent ; the nasals (15) 

 are not flat, but are moderately developed. The alveolar parts of the upper 

 and lower jaws slightly project. The chin is a little produced, is not deep. 

 The malar bones (26) are not unusually prominent : in this respect, as well as 

 in the minor breadth of the cranium, the skull departs from the type of the 

 Malay. The zygomatic process of the squamosal (27) is slender. The 

 styliform process of the alisphenoid overlaps the inner angle of the vaginal 

 process. The cranial bones are not above the average thickness. 



The following are the principal dimensions of this cranium : — 



in. lin. 

 Length, from inion i to premaxillary border (22) (178'0) .... 7 



Do. from do. to glabella (160-0) 6 4 



Breadth of the cranium (144*0) 5 4 



Circumference of the cranium (409 '0) 19 6 



Ante-posterior diameter of the interior of the cranium ( 1 50*0) . . 5 9 



Transverse diameter of ditto (1450) 5 7 



Vertical diameter of ditto (11.5-0) 4 6 



