ANDAMAN Islands. These islands, which are situated on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal, are a continuation of the archipelago which extends from Cape Negrais to Atchein Head, stretching from lat. 10° 32' to 13° 40 ’ N., and from long. 90° 6' to 92° 59' E. They are called the Great and the Little Andaman. The Great Andaman, which is the northern island, is 140 miles in length, and only 20 broad. It was formerly supposed to be one island; but two straits have been discovered, which open a clear passage into the Bay of Bengal, and divide the Great Andaman into three islands. The Little Andaman, which lies 30 miles south of the Great Andaman, is 28 miles long and 17 broad. It does not afford any good harbour, though tolerably safe anchorage maybe found near its shores. These islands have an extremely moist temperature. They are situated in the direct current of the south-west monsoon; and the central mountains, some of the lofty peaks of which, as Saddle Peak in the large Andaman, rise to the height of 2400 feet, intercept the clouds, which, for about eight months in the year, descend in incessant torrents of rain on the plains below. According to a meteorological table kept by an officer resident on the island, 98 inches of water appear to have fallen in the course of seven months. On the whole, however, the temperature is milder than in Bengal, and the heats not so intolerable.

. The island is totally uncultivated, and the savage inhabitants glean a miserable subsistence from the spontaneous produce of the woods, in which the researches of the Europeans have hitherto found little that is either palatable or nutritious. The principal trees are the banyantree, the almond-tree, the oil-tree, which grows to a great height and yields a very useful oil; the poon, the dammer, the red wood, which for furniture is little inferior to fine mahogany; the ebony, the cotton-tree, the soondry, chingry, and beady; the Alexandrian laurel, the poplar, a tree resembling satin-wood, bamboos, cutch, the melon, aloes; the iron-tree, of stupendous size, whose timber almost bids defiance to the axe of the wood-cutter. There are many other trees well adapted for the construction of ships; and, as in all the equatorial forests, there are numberless creepers and ratans, which surround the stems of the trees, and are so firmly interlaced together, that the forests are impervious, except a road be previously cut through them.

The only quadrupeds seen on the island are hogs, rats, and the ichneumon; also the guana, of the lizard tribe; all which are very destructive to poultry. There are several species of snakes and scorpions, by which the labourers employed by the British in clearing away the underwood were frequently bitten; but in no instance did the bite prove mortal. The patient was frequently affected with violent convulsions, which gradually yielded to the operation of opium and eau-de-luce.

Fish abound on the shores, and are caught in great numbers during the prevalence of the north-east monsoon, when the weather is mild: grey mullet, rock cod, skate, and soles, arc among the best. There are, besides, various other species, such as guanas, sardinas, roe-balls, sable, shad, prawns, shrimps, cray-fish, a species of whale, and sharks of an enormous size. Shell-fish are in great plenty, and oysters of an excellent quality. The shores abound in a variety of beautiful shells, such as gorgonias, madreporas, murex, and cowries, with many other sorts equally beautiful.

Birds are not numerous, and they are extremely shy. Doves, parroquets, and the Indian crow, are the most common. Hawks from the neighbouring continent are sometimes seen hovering over the tops of trees; and a few aquatic birds, such as the king-fisher, a sort of curlew, and the small sea-gull, frequent the shores. Within the caverns and recesses of the rocks are found the edible birds’ nests so highly prized among the Chinese for their supposed medicinal and restorative qualities.

The whole population of the islands does not exceed 2000 or 2500, and they are probably the most savage people on the face of the whole earth. They are far below the ordinary scale of barbarism; and in their modes of subsistence, and in their dwellings, they rise very little above the brute creation. They wear no clothes, and seem insensible to any feeling of shame from the exposure of their persons. The woods supply them with little in the way of food. They are provided with no pot or vessel that can bear the action of fire, and they cannot therefore derive much advantage from such esculent herbs as the forests may contain. The cocoa nut, which thrives so well in the neighbouring islands, is not found in the Andamans, though the natives are extremely fond of it. The fruit of the mangrove is principally used by them. Their principal food consists of fish, in quest of a precarious meal of which they climb over the rocks, or rove along the margin of the sea, often without success during the tempestuous season; but they eagerly seize on whatever else presents itself, such as lizards, guanas, rats, and snakes. From their diseased and extenuated figures, it is plain that they have no abundant or wholesome nourishment. In stature the inhabitants of the Great Andaman seldom exceed five feet; their limbs are disproportionably slender, their bellies protuberant, with high shoulders and large heads; and, what is singular and unaccountable, they have all the characteristic marks of a degenerate race of negroes, with woolly hair, flat noses, and thick lips; their eyes are small and red, their skin of a deep sooty black, while their countenances exhibit a mixed exprès-síon[7:3:111] of famine and ferocity. Lieutenant Alexander describes the inhabitants of Little Andaman as far from be- ⅛c∙ a puny race. When he landed in a boat he counted sixteen strong and able-bodied men, many of them very lusty. The ingenuity of these savages is principally seen in the fabrication of a few simple weapons on which they depend for their subsistence. These are a bow from four to five feet long, with arrows of reed, headed with fish-bone or wood hardened in the fire, a spear of heavy wood sharply pointed, and a shield made of bark. With these implements they shoot and spear the fish, which abound in their bays and creeks, with surprising dexterity. Their habitations display little more art than the dens of wild beasts. Their canoes are hollowed out of the trunks of trees by fire and instruments of stone, as they have no iron among them. Being much incommoded by insects, their first occupation in the morning is to plaster their bodies all over with mud, which, hardening in the sun, forms an effectual defence. They paint their woolly heads with a mixture of ochre and water; and, when completely dressed, it is observed by Mr Symes, who visited the island in his voyage to Ava, that a more hideous appearance is not to be found in human form. Their language does not possess the slightest affinity to any spoken either on the continent of India or on the islands. It is not harsh to the ear. Their songs are wildly melodious, and their gesticulations when singing extremely impassioned. The men have all the cunning and vindictive dispositions of savages; and they showa marked hatred to all strangers. They have little idea of a future state, but they adore the sun and the moon, and the genii of the woods, waters, and mountains as inferior agents. During the south-west monsoon, when tempests prevail with unusual violence, they deprecate the wrath of the malignant being who, according to their notions, has occasioned the storm, by chanting wild choruses in small congregations assembled on the beach or on some rock that overhangs the ocean. These islanders have occasionally been persuaded to come on board British ships; but though they were well fed and kindly treated, no persuasion could induce them to remain. The settlement of these islands, with their negro inhabitants, so widely different in their appearance not only from all those of the Asiatic continent, in which the Andamans are embayed, but also from the natives of the Nicoar islands, presents a curious problem, which has never been satisfactorily explained. It is supposed, however, by Symes, that the original stock must have been settled on the island by the accidental shipwreck of some Arab slave-ship. The English made a settlement on the larger Andaman in the year 1791. Their object was to procure a commodious harbour on the east side of the Bay of Bengal, to receive and shelter ships of war during the continuance of the north-east monsoon; also to provide a place of reception for convicts sentenced to transportation from Bengal. But the settlement, proving unhealthy, has been since abandoned. These islands have been frequently visited by British ships, but the barbarous natives reject all friendly intercourse. Lieutenant Alexander states that they presented a hostile aspect to the party who landed in search of fresh water, assailed them with volleys of arrows, and testified, by the most ferocious signs, their determined aversion to them. In April 1824 the British armament destined against the Burmese touched at the great island, when the natives persevered in their hostility, discharging flights of arrows at their boats, and then flying into the woods. Ihese islands, together with the Nicoar and other smaller islands, were included by Ptolemy in the general appellation of Insulae Bonae Fortunes, and were supposed by him to be inhabited by a race of anthropophagi, though there are no proofs of the modern inhabitants being addicted to this practice. (Symes’ Embassy to Ava ; Alexander’s Travels from India to England, comprehending a Visit to the Burman Empire, &c.; Hamilton’s Gazetteer.) (f.)