Evergreen forest predominates, and mixed forest appears only occasionally, but pure leaf-shedding forest is not met with; and as regards species, there is a marked absence of Dipterocarpus trees.
It is in the writings of Ptolemy that we find the first probable reference to the Nicobars, for after the Andamans, the next group mentioned by him is the "Barussae," which seems to be the Lankha Bálús of the older Arab navigators, since these are certainly the Nicobars.[114] The islands were also known to the same voyagers under the names of Megabalu and Legabalu.
The Chinese, another race of great navigators in these seas, have records of the Nicobars for a thousand years and more.
The next reference of any importance is that of an Arab trader who came into contact with the group during a voyage to Southern China in 851 A.D.[115] "Nagabalus, which are pretty well peopled: both the men and women there go naked, except that the women conceal their private parts with leaves of trees. When shipping is among these islands, the inhabitants come off in embarkations, and bring with them ambergris and coconuts, which they truck for iron, for they want no clothing, being free from the inconveniences of heat or cold."
Rashuddin writes of the islands in nearly the same terms, under the name of Lákvárem, opposite Lamuri (a kingdom of Sumatra), and the very imaginatively-minded author, Friar Oderic,[116] compiled a chapter on Nicoveran which is a mass of the wildest fable, utterly unworthy of credence, containing, as it does, details of people with faces like dogs, who are stout in battle (not a characteristic of the modern Nicobarese) and worshippers of the ox, while their king possessed strings of pearls, and the largest ruby in the world.
"Concerning the island of Necuveran, when you leave the island of Java the less (Sumatra) and the kingdom of Lambri, you sail north almost 150 miles and then you come to two islands, one of which (Great Nicobar) is called Necuveran. In this island they have no king nor chief, but live like beasts. And I tell you they all go naked, both men and women, and do not use the slightest covering of any kind. They are idolaters. Their woods are all of noble and valuable kinds of trees; such as Red Sanders, and Indian-nut, and Cloves, and Brazil, and sundry other good spices. There is nothing else worth relating," says Marco Polo, who probably only passed near the islands in or about the year 1293, but who gathered fairly accurate information about them.
After the Cape of Good Hope was doubled in 1497, the islands were frequented by voyagers, as expeditions to the East became more numerous.
"It was the Nicobar custom in 1566," says Master Cæsar Frederike, that "if any ship come near to that place or coast as they pass that way, as in my voyage it happened, as I came from Malacca through the channel of Sombrero, there came two of their barques near our ship, laden with fruit, as with monces (which we call Adam's apples, which fruit is like to our turnips, but is very sweet and good to eat). They would not come into the ship for anything we could do, neither would they take any money for their fruit, but they would truck for old shirts or old linen breeches. These rags we let down with a rope into their barque unto them, and look what they thought their things to be worth; so much fruit they would make fast to the rope, and let us hale it in: and it was told me that sometimes a man shall have for an old shirt a good piece of amber."[117]
In his East Africa and Malabar,[118] Barbosa refers shortly to the Nicobars. "In front of Sumatra, across the Gulf of the Ganges, are five or six small islands, which have very good water and ports for ships: they are inhabited by Gentiles, poor people, they are called Niconbar; and they find in them very good amber, which they carry thence to Malacca and other ports."