VEGETABLE FOOD, 
171 
entire subsistetice from the spontaneous productions of 
nature. 
Very little information appears to have been acquired 
conceraing the vegetable diet of the natives. Colonel 
Symes remarlcs that " the fruit of the mangrove is prin- 
cipally used, having often been found iu their deserted 
habitations, steeping in an embanked puddle of water/** 
This is more probably the fruit of the pandanus, which 
abounds on the Andamans, aa it is often mistaken for 
the fruit of the mangrove, from the circumstance of the 
pandanus being most abundant on the edge of the 
swamps, and often mingling with the mangrove-trees- 
The fruit of the pandanus is a common article of food 
among the natives of the north coast of Australia, where 
it is prepared in like mannerj by steeping in an embanked 
puddle, t 
Nearly every voyager, who has given an account of his 
visit to the Andamans, has expressed surprise at the fact, 
that while tlie Nicobar Islands, which lie close to the 
south, and the uninhabited Cocos Islands, which lie to the 
north of the group, have extensive cocoa-nut groves, not 
a single tree has ever been found on the Andamans. 
This apparent anomaly is satisfactorily explained by a 
• Symes, " Embassy to Ata," voL r, p. 310. 
t Dr. Leicbhardt, who found the paadaiius fruit in extensive use 
among the natives of the Gulf of Carpentaria, was iuclined to believe 
that they obtuiucct a fermented liquor by this process of soaking. 
The practice is more probably adopted for the purpose of removing 
some deleterious substance, similar ia its nature to the heart of the 
manioc. The fruit of the cycas-palm is sliced up and dried in the 
sun, vrith the same object. — G. W. E, 
I g 
