176 A CRUISE IN THE LACCADIVE SEA 



I still retain happy memories of Cardamum, for it is 

 the only one of the inhabited islands that we visited 

 where I was able to stroll about and collect without being 

 followed by a crowd of importunate patients afiBicted with 

 hopelessly chronic and incurable diseases. 



Note. — In a paper published in the Joumal of the Asiatic Society 

 of Bengal^ pt. 2, for 1895, Captain C. F. Oldham, R.N., gives, 

 in some detail, an account of the bed of pumice discovered on 

 Cardamum Island by Lieuts. Smith and Sinclair. Captain Oldham 

 differs from me in thinking that the phenomenon demands no 

 special explanation. 



