A MARINE ELYSIUM 79 



From the 14th to the 22nd of April, we stayed 

 to clear up a few points connected with the survey 

 of some of the straits not far from Port Blair, and 

 this gave me a chance to explore some of the little 

 islands — named after the heroes of the Indian Mutiny 

 — which make up the Eastern Andaman Archipelago. 

 All these islets are covered with dense forest, and 

 their coasts are beautifully varied — bold, sea-beaten 

 cliffs and tunnelled headlands alternating with beaches 

 of hard coral-sand strewn with cuttle bones and shells 

 of the pearly nautilus. They are fringed, especially 

 to the eastward, with coral-reefs, between which and 

 the shore are lagoons which at low water are, to a 

 naturalist, more desirable than the Elysian fields. 



Landing in the early morning, with a couple of 

 lascars to carry my collecting gear, I would all day 

 long ransack the reefs or cut through the jungle, as 

 the state of the tide ordained ; and at evening, weary, 

 wet, sunburnt, and ragged as a beggar, I would go 

 back to the ship, having seen sights and brought 

 away stuff that would supply me with facts and 

 fancies for the rest of my life. 



Though I never came across any Andamanese, I 

 i once saw a kitchen-midden of ashes, shells, and bones 

 of fish, turtle, and dugong. I saw no mammals 

 except bats, and not many birds and insects. But the 

 jungles were full of great land-crabs of the species 

 Pelocarcinus humei and Cardiosoma hirtipes, and of 



