On the outskirts of the village, we saw here and there small huts called Talik n'gi—the place of the baby. To these, mothers come from Elpanam with the newborn child, and spend several months in solitude, attended only by their husbands, before returning to the village—a very sensible proceeding, and one worthy of imitation in more civilised communities. It seems only common justice that any unpleasantness caused by ourselves in our earliest moments should be confined to those most responsible for our appearance. So the Kar Nicobarese appear to think, and have accordingly taken measures to prevent new arrivals becoming a nuisance to their future companions, for many of the houses in the village contained perhaps twenty inmates; doubtless, also, it is well for babies not to be subjected to too much companionship and attention.[22]
Again in the village we made the acquaintance of the oldest inhabitant, yclept "Friend of England," who, judging from the number of his chits, is a man of some note and many acquaintances.
Clothed at first in an infinitesimal native garment, he retired for a few moments, and then appeared in white jacket, knickerbockers, and top hat, carefully brushed in the wrong direction. He, too, would pay us a visit on board, provided that liquid sustenance were afforded; and having satisfied himself on this point, he intimated that we might count on his appearance that afternoon.
Our attention was attracted by a somewhat rude mechanical contrivance, beneath a tree, which we were told was a press for extracting oil from coconuts. Two large blocks of wood, one above the other, were placed closely against the trunk. In the upper surface of the topmost log a shallow depression had been made, and from this a channel ran to one edge, which ended in a kind of lip. In the trunk itself a hole had been scooped, to receive the end of a long beam of wood.
A quantity of coconut kernel having been placed in the basin, the beam is inserted in the tree, and a native standing on the outer end, by jumping up and down exerts so much pressure on the coconut that the oil oozes out, and running down the channel, drips from the lip into an earthenware pot placed beneath.
"TALIK N'GI" (the place of the baby), MŪS VILLAGE.
Here and there about the houses stood a kind of bench-seat, that was merely the limb of a tree with several of the branches left projecting, and trimmed in such a way that the whole piece would balance firmly.
We obtained a number of birds in the trees about the village; one in particular (Ixora, sp.?), whose leafless branches bore a quantity of large red flowers, was frequented by flocks of white-eyes (Zosterops(?), sp. nov.), munias, and sunbirds, (Arachnechthra(?), sp. nov.), and by the chestnut-rumped myna (Sturnia erythropygia), a bird only known from this island, although we later collected on Kachal a new species that closely resembles it.
