346 Notice of the Nicobar Islands. [No. 173. 



them, to take refuge in the interior of the island, so that race is now 

 master only of the mountains. 



There is a tradition amongst the Nicobarians, that the first stranger 

 who came to their island, seeing something moving on the sand, 

 perceived small persons of the size of an ant. He took care of them 

 till they attained the common size of men, so began the origin of 

 the Nicobarians. According to another tradition, a man sprung out 

 from the ground, and taking a bitch for his wife, had two children, who, 

 in the course of time, peopled the island. A man murdered was 

 buried, and from his head sprung the first cocoanut tree ; sometime 

 after all the inhabitants were destroyed by an inundation, with the 

 exception of one man and one bitch, who again peopled the island. In 

 the course of time a vessel having a prince for captain, visited Teressa, 

 who on his landing was murdered by the inhabitants ; his wife was 

 taken on shore, and treated with the greatest respect, but the spot 

 on which was shed the blood of her husband, being always before 

 her eyes, she was very unhappy. On one night she was advised in a 

 dream by her mother to remove that bloody spot from Teressa : she did 

 so, and then Penboka was separated from that island. 



The inhabitants of Teressa believe that the people of Nancowry are 

 the descendants of Malays, who, visiting in their fishing excursions that 

 island, lost their boats and settled there. The Car-Nicobar people are, 

 according to them, descendants of the Burmese, who in a revolution 

 which took place in their country, were obliged to run away from the 

 Tenasserim Coast, and landed at Nicobar. 



The dialects spoken by the Islanders differ more or less ; and the 

 difference does not arise only from pronunciation, but from a great 

 many words which are not the same ; so that the inhabitants of one of 

 the islands can scarcely make themselves understood by the inhabitants 

 of another. 



The Islanders having no written language, the few words to be 

 found at the end of this letter, have been therefore orally communi- 

 cated to me. I wrote them as the sounds occurred to my ear ; without 

 presuming to say that I have succeeded in representing them correctly. 



The Nicobarians shew great skill in the building of their houses and 

 boats. Their dwellings are strongly built : they are supported by 

 large posts, and are elevated above the ground from eight to nine 



