SKETCHES AT THE NICOBARS. 
Having recently visited the Nicobar Islands, I shall 
endeavor in the following pages to give some sketches of the 
manners of their inhabitants. The first Island where we 
stopped was Car Nicobar, the most northern of the group. 
At a short distance from shore, we were hailed by a car:oe 
fitted with outriggers and having from five to six natives in 
it. In the distance we only saw in the shape of dress two 
hats^ amongst the whole party, and nothing else, but when 
they came nearer we found each man had a piece of cloth 
round his loins of about two inches in breadth. On coming 
on board, these natives showed the most easy coolness and 
confidence, they took possession of the poop, sat upon our 
chairs, crossed their legs, and prefaced all their questions 
with “ I say.” Their principal demands were for muskets, 
hatchets, cloth, and, mirabile dictu, soup ladles. We could 
not imagine to what use the soup ladles were to be applied, 
till we found that with silver wire the women adorn their 
arms and fingers, I told them I was coming on shore and 
going to make a house, to which they evinced the most stre¬ 
nuous opposition, asking if I was a Padre. We found all 
this opposition arose from a recent visitor having filled their 
minds with suspicions of the Danes and other white people, 
persuading them that the consequence of Europeans, especi¬ 
ally missionaries, settling amongst them, would be the ruin 
and depopulation of the islands. 
The next morning we landed in an open sandy beach, 
whereon I determined to pitch my tents, I took a walk into 
the jungle, where some of the trees, the Barringtonia spe- 
ciosa, grow to a most glorious height. I passed through 
two or three villages. At one where I stopped to di-ink a 
cocoanut, there issued from one of the houses a young female 
with a Junonian walk and not unlike in appearance what I 
could fancy the Samian goddess, her arms, her thinly clad 
limbs, her face were all of the most elegant proportions. 
The young lady, the next night I was on shore, and when 
fast asleep, paid me a visit, but alas for my vanity which was 
highly tickled, it was only to beg an empty pot which had 
held herring paste which she had seen and mightily coveted ! 
I gave her at the same time a looking glass. She looked at 
it and asked its use, to which I replied, to see her face, for I 
never knew a young damsel who did not glory in the reflection 
