1864.] 



Memoranda relative to three Andamanese. 



163 



Andamanese, and for the rest of their stay at Maulmein, they lived 

 under his roof. The arrangement was particularly convenient, as the 

 Burman " Moung Shway Hman" speaks English, which it was 

 proposed to teach the Andamanese, and is a man of steady habits and 

 good character. 



The photograph which accompanied Colonel Fytche's paper in the 

 J. A. S. No III, 1862 will give a better idea of the physiognomy of 

 these people than the most laboured description. Mr, Blyth, Curator of 

 the Asiatic Society's Museum, and a remarkably accurate observer, was 

 at Maulmein for some time with these Andamanese, and pointed out 

 the leading peculiarities of their configuration, and as his remarks have 

 been embodied in the report, which Colonel Fytche, Commissioner 

 of Tenasserim, sent to the Journal of the Asiatic Society, it would be 

 superfluous to dwell on this part of the subject ; but I would take this 

 opportunity of observing that 1 cannot agree with an opinion which 

 has been more than once published, that the Andamanese have no 

 affinity to the African race. They appear to me on the contrary, to 

 be very closely allied. The small ear and the less gross lips are not, 

 in my opinion, sufficient data on which to found a fifth, to the long 

 established four grand divisions of mankind. From the few remarks 

 to be gathered on the subject, in Bowring's account of the Philippines, 

 it seems probable that the people of the interior, called Nigrettoes, who 

 have so long withstood all attempts at civilization and communication 

 with the Europeans and Eurasians of the coast, are the same race 

 as the Andamanese. And further South, the ferocious savages of the 

 interior of Sumatra, from whose hands Madame Pfieffer had so 

 providential an escape, are also probably the same, but she has not 

 given a sufficiently detailed description of them to allow of certainty 

 on this point. How this so-called Papuan tribe came to be so 

 separated from the strongly defined geographical limits of the African 

 race, and spread throughout the Eastern Archipelago, will perhaps 

 ever remain a matter of conjecture : but their distribution throughout 

 that space, from the Andamans to Sumatra, (if not further,) may be 

 accounted for by the propinquity of those islands to each other. 



Our three friends were named at Port Blair, Crusoe, Jumbo, and 

 Friday, and labelled accordingly ; each name being stamped on a 

 tin medal worn round its owner's neck. The necessity for such an 

 apparently whimsical arrangement * may be understood, when it is 



