﻿344 A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF CARNICOBAR. 



more respect paid to them ; but there is no appearance 

 of authority one over another. Their society seems 

 bound rather by mutual obligations continually con- 

 ferred and received : the simplest and best of all 

 ties. 



The inhabitants of the Andamans are said to be 

 Cannibals. The people of Carnicobar have a tradition 

 among them, that several conoes came from Andaman 

 many years ago, and that the crews were all armed, 

 and committed great depredations, and killed several 

 of the Nicobarians. It appears at firft remarkable, 

 that there should be such a wide difference between 

 the manners of the inhabitants of islands so near to 

 one another j the Andamans being savage Cannibals^ 

 and the others, the most harmless inoffensive people 

 possible. But it is accounted for by the following 

 historical anecdote, which, I have been assured, is 

 matter of fact. Shortly after the Portuguese had dis- 

 covered the passage to India round the Cape of Good 

 Hope, one of their ships, on board of which were a 

 number of Mozambique negroes, was lost on the And- 

 aman islands, which were till then uninhabited. The 

 blacks remained on the island and settled there : the 

 Europeans made a small shallop, in which they sailed to 

 Pegu. On the other hand, the Nicobar islands were 

 peopled from the opposite main and the coast of Pegu ; 

 in proof of which, the Nicobar and Pegu languages are 

 said, by those acquainted with the latter, to have 

 much resemblance. 



