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Scientific Memoirs by
marked, appears to point to the fact that the people were present in the islands
as Hindus before they became Musalmans.
These two considerations have to be borne in mind in investigating the
problem with which this paper proposes to deal—the nature and the probable
origin of the flora of the archipelago. And to them has to be added a third;
it does not necessarily follow from their present condition that the islands now
inhabited have always been so throughout the human history of the archipelago,
or that those now uninhabited have always been without people. For the wear
-ing action of the ocean on the islands must at all times be considerable, and their
elevation above sea-level is so slight that severe cyclones passing along the
Malabar coasts give rise to storm-waves high enough to cover them. In 1847
such a wave destroyed 1,000 of the whole population, and in 1867 a similar
wave drowned half that number in Minikoi alone. 1 A n d e v i d e n c e o f o t h e r k i n d s
is not altogether wanting. When Mr. A. O. Hume visited the archipelago in
1875 he found the people of Kiltan cultivating the plantain and various other
garden plants and exhibiting all the appearances of being comfortably off.2 I n
1881 the population of this island was 790. 3 But now they are miserably ill-off,
and when Dr. Alcock visited the islands in 18894 possessed few of the comforts
seen by Mr. Hume, e.g. they did not cultivate the plantain, while they were,
actually doing a little fishing; the account of the native official on the island at
the same time was that the population had fallen to 450, or thereabouts. Again,
in Betrapar, of which there is no record that it ever was inhabited, Mr. Hume
collected certain species of plants that could hardly have been introduced, except
by the agency of man.
Our knowledge of the flora of the archipelago is probably by no means
complete. Mr. Hume collected in the islands that he visited, and references to
the species he saw are to be found in the paper already referred to. The col
-lection itself he kindly presented to the Calcutta Herbarium, where it is now
preserved. And Dr. Alcock made a small collection in two of the islands, which
he also has kindly sent to Calcutta. Nothing has been received from the archi
-pelago during the interval between 1875 and 1889. Mr. Hume did not visit
Anderut, one of the islands in which Dr. Alcock collected; Dr. Alcock had the
opportunity of visiting only one of the islands examined by Mr. Hume. While,
therefore, there are a number of species mentioned by Mr. Hume that Dr.
Alcock did not see, there are, on the other hand, some in Dr. Alcock's collection
that were not met with by Mr. Hume. Mr. Hume's collection has, therefore,
been re-examined, and his notes studied along with the notes and specimens of
Dr. Alcock, and a list drawn up which includes the plants observed or collected
1 Hunter: Gazetteer of India, ed. ii, vol. viii, p. 396.
2 Hume: The Laccadives and the West Coast; Stray Feathers (1876), vol. iv, pp. 413 et seg.:—a
charming account of the voyage during which this visit was made.
3 Hunter, l. c., page 392.
4 Notes made by Dr. Alcock during 1888-89 in a voyage of H. M.'s Investigator.