1846.] Notice of the Is icobar Islands. 359 



which appears as a large basin, the eye meets with some hamlets sur- 

 rounded by cocoanut and betelnut trees ; many of the houses are built 

 like the Malay huts, and some have the shape of bee-hives. The whole 

 circumference of the harbour is lined with hills varying in shape, size, 

 and height : some rising in the form of inclined planes, some towering 

 perpendicularly ; and some having several escarpments ; these hills, from 

 four to five hundred feet high, are covered with luxuriant vege- 

 tation. In vain the eye seeks for cultivated ground to embellish the 

 scenery ; nothing is to be seen but the savage grandeur of a vigorous 

 vegetation, which characterises this part of the world. The harbour 

 communicates with the sea by another entrance towards the east, which 

 is the general passage for vessels to get in : there stands a village called 

 Malaca ; when vessels anchor close to it, both of the passages may be seen. 



The inhabitants of this village, which has ten or twelve houses, are far 

 from making a favourable impression on the visitor. By their features 

 the Nancowry people resemble the Malays so much, that they appear 

 to have some of the Malay blood in their veins ; and there is no doubt, 

 that if they rightly deserve to be considered as the wickedest amongst all 

 the inhabitants of the group, it is owing chiefly to their frequent inter- 

 course with the Malays. Some days previous to my arrival at Malaca, 

 a young East Indian, William Goldsmith T who had resided there several 

 years, died in that village. On enquiring about the particulars of his 

 death, I was far from being satisfied with their contradictory, and on all 

 respects, unsatisfactory answers. This young man must have known a 

 great deal about the doings of the natives : it is not therefore improba- 

 ble that his death had been hastened by the suspicious Islanders who 

 feared he might make known their mischievous deeds. In the same 

 village an African Christian, named John, who speaks tolerable Portu- 

 guese, and was employed as gunner by the Danes when they were in 

 that island, came on board dressed with a miserable rag which the 

 natives wear around their loins, he had for a neckcloth a fine panta- 

 loon, which he received a few days before from one of the Danish offi- 

 cers. I put several questions to him concerning the inhabitants, but in 

 vain ; he only told me that the natives were very good, with the excep- 

 tion of the inhabitants of the False harbour. 



The first Danish settlement was at Karmorta, opposite to the village 

 of Malaca ; the remains of a few brick houses may be seen still on a 



