THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 67 



curious confidence, despite their titter nakedness, despite tlieir 

 repulsive ugliness, these women really looked and impressed 

 one with a sense that they were modest. 



The natural dorsal development of the ladies cannot possibly 

 be exceeded by that of the Yenuses of the Cape. The princess, a 

 young thing of about 17 years of age, had a well-marked shelf 

 posteriorly some 6 or 8 inches broad, on which she quite 

 naturally laid anything given her. Not a particle of hair appear- 

 ed to be left by either sex on the head or on any part of the 

 body, and several of them were partially or wholly covered 

 with a coating of red ochre-like clay, fully a rupee in 

 thickness. 



These Rutland Island folks belong to the same race that 

 inhabit the coasts of the whole of the southern and the 

 southern half of the Middle Andaman. They are all, thanks 

 to Mr. Homfray's exertions, quite friendly now. Interview 

 Island and the coasts of the Northern Andaman, and the northern 

 half of the Middle Island, are inhabited by the same kind of 

 people, who, however, talk a somewhat different language. 

 These, too, though not yet perhaps to be absolutely trusted, are 

 also becoming, through the instrumentality of Homfray's 

 Andamanese, friendly and less suspicious than they were. 



In the interior of the islands a distinct race exists, of which 

 nothing definite is known. The Andamanese call them savages, 

 cannot understand them, and are much afraid of them. Little 

 has been seen of them. A party of them not long ago pounced 

 upon a party of convicts working in the jungle, tied them up 

 and stripped them of everything, but did not hurt them ; on 

 the contrary after stripping them, hugged them, cried over 

 them, patted them affectionately, and took their departure. 

 These are probably the aborigines, and are similar to the 

 jungle race, the oorang-utan of the Nicobarese, who inhabit 

 the dense forests of the mountainous interior of the Great Nieo- 

 bar. Then on the Little Andaman we have a distinct people, 

 whom our Port Blair and Rutland Island Andamanese cannot, 

 in the smallest degree, understand. Very unreclaimed savages, 

 whom it has hitherto been found impossible to conciliate in any 

 way, and who murder all strangers the instant they can. They 

 are not, however, cannibals as has been asserted ; the bodies of 

 ship-wrecked persons and others killed by them have always 

 been found intact lightly buried in the sand. 



None of the inhabitants of these islands, I may remark, appear 

 ever to have been cannibals. Mr. Horn fray has particularly 

 enquired about this, and his people ridicule the idea. Writers 



