272 
The island is said never to have been occupied by the Burmese, and 
has evidently been originally densely wooded. 
The greater part of it is indeed densely wooded still, but a corner 
has been completely cleared between the watercourse that has been 
converted into a tank and the watercourse that passes south. On the 
cleared high ground between these two streams stands a telegraph office 
with a house for the telegraph-master attached ; a little way off are 
servants’ quarters. The clearing has been extended across this latter 
stream for a short distance, so as to provide a site for a shelter-hut for 
Bassein pilots while they await vessels bound for that port. Between 
the tank-bund and the sea, but nearer to the tank and close to its over¬ 
flow, stand two Burmese huts occupied by collectors of turtles’ eggs; 
between these huts and the beach is situated a small European grave¬ 
yard. At the outlet of the other streamlet and opposite the safest 
landing place is a boat shed; from this point eastward for about 400 
yards—along the sea-view of the telegraph-office, in fact—the jungle 
has been cleared away down to the beach. Everywhere else the jungle 
along the sea-face of tlie island remains intact. A plantain garden and 
a paddock of considerable size have been cleared on the central plateau 
behind the telegraph-office ; elsewhere the jungle remains untouched; 
altogether between two-thirds and three-fourths of the surface of the island 
has not been interfered with. The beach itself consists of deep soft sand 
in which the streamlets disappear before they reach the sea; at low tide, 
however, long reefs, extending south and west of the island proper for half 
a mile or more, are laid bare. On the east side, where the telegraph cable 
lands, no reefs appear; at the north-west corner they do, but only ex¬ 
tend seaward for 50 or 60 yards. The reefs consist of the same sand¬ 
stone that forms the Arracan Yomah and that appears again first in the 
Andaman and afterwards in the Nicobar group of islands; they are 
altogether without coral. 
The reefs and pools between them are remarkably destitute of 
marine vegetation, Padina pavonia and Caulerpa clavifera being the 
principal species, and both being in very small quantity. Not only are 
there very few groioing Algae, but very few are washed ashore ; these 
consist chiefly of a small green Sargassa. The absence of the submarine 
meadows of marine Hydrocharidce-, so characteristic of the otherwise 
similar pools among the coral-encrusted reefs of the Great Coco, is very 
striking. There is no mangrove belt on any. part of the shore, unless it 
be considered as represented by some small patches of Avicennia offici¬ 
nalis on the reefs about 30 paces from the beach; the individual plants 
send their roots along the seams between the layers of sandstone for 
considerable distances, and these give off rootlets that rise vertically 
54 
