THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 93 



contact with Malay traders, whose crews are pirates or traders 

 as occasion serves. Accordingly some thirty or forty of the 

 Nicobarese and a certain number of Malays formed themselves 

 into a gang to seize and plunder all the vessels they could and 

 murder the crews. Amongst these wretches Hung-hung-soo 

 was one of the foremost. 



During the course of ten years they are supposed to have 

 disposed of at least twenty vessels and their crews. Most of 

 these vessels were native crafts, but some were European. On 

 one occasion we know an European woman was brought on shore 

 and so brutally abused by the whole band that she died the 

 next day. On a later occasion an European woman, the wife 

 of another Captain, was brought on shore with two female 

 children. This poor woman, an English woman, was in Hung- 

 hung-soo's possession, as late as the beginning of 1867, when 

 alarmed at the arrival of some English vessel he first tried to 

 poison her and her children, and the poison not quite effecting 

 his purpose, dragged her into the forest and knocked her on the 

 head. There is not the smallest fraction of doubt about this 

 particular case and yet Hung-hung-soo lives, and has, within 

 the last three years, visited and been visited by a European 

 officer on friendly terms. 



It is quite true that he wisely keeps out of other Europeans 

 ways, but the thing is a scandal of which I am confident that 

 the present Superintendent, General Stewart, will never tolerate a 

 recurrence in his time. Of course we saw nothing of this wretch, 

 who is now one of the few survivors of the pirate nest. We 

 found a good many birds, but did not care to spend many hours 

 here, as Davison had repeatedly visited the island. 



A few of the grand Nicobar Pigeon appear always to keep 

 about this place ; we shot one, and saw others, and Davison 

 never visited it without seeing a few. Then we bagged numbers 

 of Blyth's Imperial Pigeon, of Tytler's Tree-stare, of the Nicobar 

 Bulbul, the Pectoral Sun-bird, the Nicobar Oriole, White-eyed 

 Tit and Paroquet, of Blyth's Collared Kingfisher and Cuckoo- 

 dove, of the White-breasted Water-hen, and Black-naped Azure 

 Flycatcher, and saw, but failed to secure, Megapods, Yellow 

 Wagtails, and a Bush-thrush. 



About noon we came on to Bompoka and Teressa, the former 

 a very striking island, a bold conical grassy hill broadly 

 truncated (and with, apparently, a shallow circular tree-clad 

 depression at the top, ) rising out of a wide belt of magnificent 

 forest, densely fringed everywhere along the shore with screw 

 pines and cocoanuts. 



