THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 97 



therefore as our discovery is, it seems capable of a very simple 

 explanation. 



It is very doubtful whether the Nicobar Pigeon breeds on 

 any other island of the group, but the question remains is this 

 the one breeding haunt of the whole Indian Archipelago ? Do 

 the Batty Malve birds wander to Sumatra, Borneo, and other 

 islands? I can find no reliable record of their breedino- else- 

 where, and improbable as it seems it is still possible. One 

 thing is certain, it is Batty Malve that mainly supplies the 

 whole Nicobar group, for while during the summer and 

 autumn, this beautiful bird is, as we know from the natives, com- 

 paratively common in all the islands, during the whole period 

 that Davison and we were about them (viz., from the 20th of 

 January to the 20th March) they were rare and scarce to a 

 degree, never more than two or three being met with, and these, 

 almost exclusively, towards the middle of the day. 



We anchored early next morning (20th) at the south of Car 

 Nicobar, the most fertile, best cultivated, and most populous 

 island of the group. Here we found cocoanut forest ! not 

 mere narrow belts fringing the shore, but unbroken planta- 

 tions stretching, in some places, a full mile inland. Inside this 

 again we found plaintains, ginger, yams, tobacco, oranges, 

 limes, and herbs which I did not recognize, far more carefully 

 grown than we had elsewhere seen them. The people too seem 

 more intelligent and thriving than elsewhere, and have regular 

 villages inland instead of merely on the sea shore as in most 

 of the other islands. Altogether Car is facile princeps, I should 

 say amongst the other members of the group, both as regards 

 soil and population. 



In their way the people are very honest, and a Burman 

 trader, who had come to load nuts, told a story of how, on one 

 occasion, he had made an advance for cocoanuts, but before 

 being able to complete his cargo had been driven away by bad 

 weather. How, it was two years before he returned, and how, 

 although the man he had paid for the nuts was dead, others of the 

 village, the moment he landed, spontaneously recalled to him 

 the fact, that he had not had the full number of nuts he had 

 paid for, and duly, as a matter of course, put the balance on 

 board just as if his vessel, instead of having been two years 

 away, had never left offing. I have had to mention the 

 villainy and cruelty of some few of the Nicobarese belonging to 

 the central groups ; but these wretches, be it understood, are not 

 to be taken as types of the people. On the contrary they were 

 exceptionally depraved men, incited to and tutored in crime by 



