The chief part of the population is believed to be of race akin to the Malay, but they seem to be of more than one race, and there is great variety in dialect.  There have long been reports of a black tribe with woolly hair in the unknown interior of the Great Nicobar, and my friend Colonel H. Man, when Superintendent of our Andaman Settlements, received spontaneous corroboration of this from natives of the former island, who were on a visit to Port Blair.  Since this has been in type I have seen in the F. of India (28th July, 1874) notice of a valuable work by F.A. de Roepstorff on the dialects and manners of the Nicobarians.  This notice speaks of an aboriginal race called Shob’aengs, “purely Mongolian,” but does not mention negritoes.  The natives do not now go quite naked; the men wear a narrow cloth; and the women a grass girdle.  They are very skilful in management of their canoes.  Some years since there were frightful disclosures regarding the massacre of the crews of vessels touching at these islands, and this has led eventually to their occupation by the Indian Government.  Trinkat and Nancouri are the islands which were guilty.  A woman of Trinkat who could speak Malay was examined by Colonel Man, and she acknowledged having seen nineteen vessels scuttled, after their cargoes had been plundered and their crews massacred.  “The natives who were captured at Trinkat,” says Colonel Man in another letter, “were a most savage-looking set, with remarkably long arms, and very projecting eye-teeth.”

The islands have always been famous for the quality and abundance of their “Indian Nuts,” i.e. cocos.  The tree of next importance to the natives is a kind of Pandanus, from the cooked fruit of which they express an edible substance called Melori, of which you may read in Dampier; they have the betel and areca; and they grow yams, but only for barter.  As regards the other vegetation, mentioned by Polo, I will quote, what Colonel Man writes to me from the Andamans, which probably is in great measure applicable to the Nicobars also!  “Our woods are very fine, and doubtless resemble those of the Nicobars.  Sapan wood (i.e.  Polo’s Brazil) is in abundance; coco-nuts, so numerous in the Nicobars, and to the north in the Cocos, are not found naturally with us, though they grow admirably when cultivated.  There is said to be sandal-wood in our forests, and camphor, but I have not yet come across them.  I do not believe in cloves, but we have lots of the wild nutmeg."[2] The last, and cardamoms, are mentioned in the Voyage of the Novara, vol. ii., in which will be found a detail of the various European attempts to colonise the Nicobar Islands with other particulars. (See also J.A.S.B. XV. 344 seqq.) [See Schlegel’s Geog.  Notes, XVI., The Old States in the Island of Sumatra.—­H.C.]