CHAPTER V
AN OLD ACCOUNT OF KAR NICOBAR
In 1778 Kar Nicobar was visited by Dr I. G. Koenig, a Swede, and pupil of Linnæus. He spent many years in India, both as doctor to the Danish missionaries at Tranquebar, and as naturalist to the Nabob of Arcot. After visiting different parts of India and Ceylon, he started on an expedition to Siam and Malacca, and as his account of the voyage will be but little known to English readers, I have extracted from it such portions as deal generally with the island, leaving out a quantity of botanical matter.
A translation of all Koenig's diaries was made for the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and appears in Nos. 26 and 27 of its Journals.
The account commences with the starting of the ship Bristol from Madras on August 8, 1778, on its way to Siam.
"August 31, 1778.—At 9 o'clock, land was discovered from the mast. The sails were set and the course directed straight towards the land. A quarter of an hour later, we could distinguish the land from the fore deck; it rose before us like smoke, and seemed to be high and hilly.
"As we approached the land, we could from time to time distinguish some white, sparkling spots, especially close to the summit of the mountain; we took them to be chalk stone, but as we came nearer, we saw that they were a peculiar kind of fields interspersed with green.
"Our captain knew this country very well: it was the first of the Nequebar[198] islands, which is called 'Kare Nequebar.' He therefore ordered the ship to be steered towards its north-eastern coast, in such manner as not to come too near a stony bank stretching far into the sea. The more we approached the land, the more agreeable it seemed to the eye, on account of the pleasant change of wood with green fields, and trees standing in thin rows between them. There was such perpetual change of scenery, that it was almost impossible to believe this island to be inhabited by uncivilized people. One field was specially conspicuous. It reached in a slope down to the sea, and there was bordered by a row of thinly planted trees, the waves beating against it with great violence; in all other parts the sea was bordered by thick trees like by a wall. After this we passed another side of the island pretty closely, this coast not being dangerous at all, and at the same time we came behind the wind. The ship cast anchor a quarter of a German mile from the shore, the water being fifteen fathoms deep. It was then 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
"The country seemed to be level and flat for about one German mile, and was thickly overgrown with trees down to the seashore. There were some semicircular openings hewn out, in which one could perceive several houses with thatched roofs.
"We had scarcely cast anchor, when some of the natives of Necquebar came in their canoes; they arrived rowing in silence. Their canoes were long, narrow, and pointed; they were hewn out of trees, the best of them having a thin staff, about 1½ man's height, right in front, at the end of which was fastened a little flag, by means of diametrical pieces of wood; the flag, however, was not movable, and stood out straight in front. There were two bamboos tied to the top of the canoe, about 1 foot apart from each other,[199] and at one side there was a kind of wing fastened to the same, for the purpose of preventing the canoe from being overset.
"This wing was made of two bamboo sticks as long as the eighth part of the whole length of the boat, and to these were tied two other bamboo sticks, which stood out at the two ends; they were twice as long as the width of the boat, and at the end of these cross sticks another bamboo was fastened, running parallel with the boat, and standing out as much at the front part, as long as the pointed end of the canoe. The smaller boats all had this arrangement, only they had no staff for the flag. There were more than eight men rowing the big boats. Their oars were lancet-shaped as far as the middle, and had a protruding sharp-cornered point. They were thin and smooth, about 6 inches wide, the handle was round and short, their whole length being about 4 feet; they were made of a sort of brownish red wood.
"Those of the natives that came on board were mostly young, except their captain, who was rather old; he had received a name from a European captain, who frequently came hither, viz., Makintosh.
"Their figure is very much like that of the Malays; they had round heads thickly covered with short coarse hair, a large forehead, round small brown eyes, a flat nose, thick lips and large faces, big teeth red with betel, and thin black beards; they were of a light brown colour. Their shoulders were large, and they seemed to be muscular, their veins were more prominent than is commonly the case with the black, their calves were very much developed, but they were all only of medium stature. Their clothing consisted of a piece of coarse blue linen, about three fingers wide, which was wound several times round the lower part of their body and taken up between the legs; some of them wore old straw hats. At first sight the expression of their face seemed to be wild, but one soon lost that impression; they showed few signs of any passion, smiled in drawing their lips up on one side, and when they felt offended they walked away without any sign of anger. The principal articles they brought with them were coconuts. Some of them had little square boxes, the biggest of them being one foot long; they were made from the sheaths of the young leaves of the chamœrops,[200] and they contained many varieties of amber[201] for sale. There were some pieces of one or two drachms weight, and they were wrapped in leaves, among them one kind very much resembling benzoin but not having the same odour. As much as I could make out from the interpreter, this piece, like all the other pieces, had been thrown on shore by the sea; it seemed to have been burnt at one end.[202] The payment for these articles was mostly made in tobacco or blue linen. My curiosity and longing to see the country were very great, but the time passed with necessary arrangements in reference to the ship and also in talking to the natives of Nacquebar. At last, at 4 o'clock the captain ordered the boat to be put out, and I set out for the shore, feeling very glad and happy. But on nearing the land we perceived a strong breaking of the waves against the shore. We chose a little bay, which seemed to have sandy banks, because it was guarded on both sides by high cliffs. A big wave seized the boat and threw it with great violence against the shore; a second bigger wave followed, which filled the boat, broke one of the oars, and some parts of the boat itself, besides terrifying us greatly. I did not want to wait for the third wave to come, but jumped down into the water, which reached up to my waist, in order to escape a greater danger, and all I had taken with me was soaked.
"The shore was rather steep in the beginning, and there were many little bays, covered with a whitish-yellow sand. The above-mentioned stone cliffs consisted of grey coarse chalkstone. Here and there big pieces of different kinds of corals had been thrown up by the sea, among them one kind which had the appearance of many knife-blades grown together. I do not remember having seen any of this kind before. Higher up on the shore there were innumerable varieties of blue, black, red, brown, and white corals, among them also the so-called 'red organ.' I also found a peculiar kind of very coarse sponge, and many kinds of shells were thrown up very high; many of them had been thrown into the woods for some little distance. The whole shore was not of a man's height, and it almost immediately sloped down again towards the wood....
"... As it grew dark I went to one of the hamlets where about twenty houses, most of them with pointed thatched roofs, stood on piles. The principal houses, three in number, were placed in the middle, but each separate from the other. They were built on piles about 10 to 12 inches thick, and more than a man's height. Some of them had 24 to 30 of these piles; they were bamboo, and one side was open, where a bench hung by ropes, large enough to allow two people to sit upon, and so low, that their feet when sitting would touch the ground. The roof of the real dwelling-house was in some cases angularly pointed, in others rounder; very few showed a long ridge. The access was gained by means of a narrow well-made bamboo ladder, through a square hole, which was wide enough to afford admission for a full-grown man; the floor consisted of broad sawn planks of unequal length supported by the cross beams; these beams in their turn resting on the above-mentioned piles. The big houses were divided into storeys, the lower one being as high as two men, the upper one was lower and more like a barn.
"Round about on the principal rafters, there were some bamboo sticks hardly as thick as the thumb fastened across. This looked very nice; but there were no windows at all, nor any to replace them, but the light came only through the holes serving them for door, therefore it was very dark. All their household implements were standing round about, mostly tied to the bamboo; that which could not be kept in this manner had been put into small boxes, which were one foot long, half a foot wide, and hardly half a foot high, and were provided with lids, which were made, as I have already said before, from the partitions sheaths of the young chamœrops leaves. These little boxes had been tied to a bamboo, which was fastened right across the room, and was therefore at some distance from the roof.
"There was great cleanliness as regards the floor, and the air also was very pure, not the faintest disagreeable odour could be detected. The upper storey consisted only of bamboo sticks, they were thin, not tied together, and resting on the cross beams; they had turned somewhat brown through the smoke of the lamps, but I could not see that they kept any provisions there, and on the whole they do not collect many provisions. I saw some piles erected near some of the houses, they were more than man's height, two cross piles were fastened to them, and here they stewed some yam roots in the open air. They had no gardens, their houses and also their outhouses stood among Carica papaya. Their weapons consisted of small lances somewhat shaped like pikes, which were made of smooth round sticks about as thick as a finger and three yards long.[203] I saw some of them return with these kind of weapons. They had been in the wood to fetch provisions for one or two days. I did not see any fishing implements.
"There were two ships there, one of them an English three-master, the second one lying further south with two masts, it was a French ship. They were both loading coconuts, which they bought here very cheaply in order to take them to Pegu, and to sell them there with great profit.
"Their women have almost the same appearance as their men, being strong and muscular, but most of them had their hair shorn off. Their clothing consisted of a blue cloth wound round their loins, or they wore an apron made of leaves, which was cut in strips hardly one line wide, and reached down to the knees; they were plaited together at the top and hung round their bodies in layers almost two inches thick. These strips seemed to have been taken from the borassi or chamœrops. Some grown-up girls I saw here as well, their hair was cut off below the ear and hung loosely round their head.
"However many people I saw here of different sex, I did not come across any whom I could have termed old. The only exception was a woman, apparently about fifty years old. The shortness of my stay here prevented me to make further researches and inquiries, which besides would have been very difficult considering the language and utter simplicity of the natives. As far as I could observe they were very vague in their ideas as regards years, months, weeks, days, and hours.
"Near one of the large houses I saw some piles; they were about ten inches thick, square, and two and a half feet high. At the upper end they had two holes, meeting in the middle like a cross; through them were plaited many coloured ribbons both of linen and of cloth, presenting the appearance of streamers; at their end there was a stick about as high as a man, at the end of this a piece of white linen was fastened of about two inches wide, looking like a flag; all this was surrounded by a sort of conical figure of the sheaths of the chamœrops, so that only in front a little piece of the streamers was to be seen. I made inquiries as to these things, and they told me they were monuments for the dead, and that lately three persons had died in this house. I saw some more of the same kind of stakes which were already old, but there was not one near every house.
"I saw some persons of both sexes wearing green fringes, and I inquired why they were in this manner distinguished from the others; as much as I could learn from my interpreter these were those who had held their feast of love. This is always celebrated in the woods, never anywhere else, and as a sign of this joy they wore these fringes; they were really made from long pisang[204] leaves split through the middle and fringed crossways. They are first worn round their neck, then across their shoulders, and at last round their loins.
"My attention was attracted by a continual murmuring; I inquired into its cause. It was the singing of some women, who wanted to cure another of her headache. This afforded me at the same time the opportunity of seeing the interior of their houses. I was admitted and allowed to mount, and I found the invalid sitting on her feet, some of the women lying near her, and four standing before her; one of them held something in her hand, which was supposed to be some article for fumigating; I could, however, neither see nor smell it. Their whole song consisted of one tone, which was taken first at a very high pitch, but by repeating it so often they slowly sank to the lowest notes, then they paused, and one of them commenced again very high, and the others chimed in until they had again arrived at the lowest notes. They kept on singing in this way as long as I was there, which, however, was not very long, because it soon grew dark. I felt the invalid's forehead, which was a little warmer than ordinarily and covered with weak perspiration. Her hands were also hot, and her pulse quicker than usual, which symptoms might point to a cold in a body inclined to laziness.
"The number of children that I met here was not large either, and was far smaller than what I had seen on the coast in villages of equal size. I saw very few animals here; they kept some pigs near their houses, and the pork is said to be of very good taste here, because they feed the pigs on coconuts. There were also some small hens here, and a female dog, very much like the pariah dogs, which I had seen on the coast, and probably it was brought from there, only it seemed to have shorter legs than the ordinary kind....
"... As it grew dark I left the country, where I should have liked to stay for some days, but I feared we might not get safely through the high waves. A cicada sang in the wood in a strange manner—for me it was a sad song. In the dark evening I picked up a little piece of seaweed which had been thrown on shore. We were luckier than we had feared to be as regards the starting from shore, which we left after having explored the country for one hour and a half. After one hour's journey both ways, we arrived on board at 7 o'clock.
"September 1st.—Early this morning the anchors were hoisted, but hardly had we left the land when a storm, combined with heavy showers of rain, arose. The atmosphere was misty, and one of these stormy showers was so violent and sudden that we almost perished. A new top-sail was torn to pieces, the waves at the same time were uncommonly high, and the whole sea like in a thunderstorm. I thanked God that I succeeded in arranging the specimens which I had gathered on my journey."
GROUP OF KAR NICOBARESE.