"February 10.—Gave Tanamara a watch this afternoon, to spur him to further efforts in collecting curiosities. His wife, whom he calls 'my Mary,'[49] desires to visit the schooner this evening; but although she is uninvited, and comes by her own wish, she has bargained for two fathoms of red cotton in payment for the honour done us.
GROUP OF DANCERS, NANKAURI HARBOUR.
"We met a man on shore who was for a time at the school formerly kept for natives at Port Blair. He lays claim to the name of William Brown, and speaks English very well; his education otherwise has resulted in giving him a contempt for the native superstitions, of which he speaks with sneers, and meanwhile has replaced them by no other tenets. The train of events that brings such a condition of things about seems somewhat injudicious. A knowledge—a small knowledge—of the 'three R's' is of very little use to a native who has sooner or later to return to his national mode of existence. His experience may unsettle him, and is no suitable training for his future life, while it must leave him at a disadvantage among his countrymen, who have been bred to the conditions under which their existence will be passed."
"February 11.—Tanamara came on board last evening with his brother-in-law (Hamól) and nephew (Térrok). He was half-drunk with toddy, and brought—it was quite a family party—his wife (Helpak) and mother (Mert). A canoe-load of dishes, spears, and charms, which accompanied them, we purchased with old clothes, wire, and rice. The headman is as great a beggar as the others, perhaps more so, by virtue of his position and his English. Our conversation was continually interrupted by demands for one thing or another as he remembered them: things for his father, mother, wife, each request insinuatingly prefaced by the words 'my friend.' 'My friend, you give me—; My friend, I want—.' But for this fault, he is a fairly favourable specimen of a Nicobarese, and is certainly more intelligent than the rank and file; but, like many that we met, he is somewhat spoilt by contact with more civilised conditions.
"We had on board a quantity of American cigarettes, packed in cardboard boxes, each containing a dozen, and a coloured picture of a young woman in an evening gown! These packets were very useful as small presents, or as an answer to a request for a smoke. 'Oh, my dear!' exclaimed Tanamara, as he lovingly gazed at the picture from his packet. But he soon became dissatisfied, for she was a blonde and he likes brunettes, while what he was most anxious to obtain was the portrait of a Malay woman.
"Our small supply of spirits coming to an end, Abbott manufactured a new kind of cocktail from the medical stores—tincture of cardamoms, essence of ginger, sugar, and water, with a few spoonsful of rum to give the mixture a bouquet. This fiery liquid was received with some suspicion at first; but when I told them it was the favourite tipple of the C.C. at Port Blair (may I be forgiven), Tanamara and his brother—it was too stiff for the others—drank it down, although the tears stood in their eyes."
Of the fauna, we obtained from day to day little of interest: the jungle was without paths, and too thick even to see much in. No rats were trapped, but one specimen was brought us in a bottle by a native, and this has proved to be Mus alexandrinus, totally unrecorded until now from the Andamans or Nicobars. Pigeons were common, but megapodes scarce, and the only one obtained was caught in a trap. The vicinity of the harbour, though a somewhat unproductive hunting-ground for the ornithologist, for those interested in the natives, is, like Kar Nicobar, a most satisfactory locality.
Nankauri is a heart-shaped island, with an area of 19 square miles, and a maximum height of 534 feet. The bed rock consists of serpentinous magnesian, which is exposed in places. It is covered by a plastic white or yellowish clay and clay marl, with intervening beds of quartz sandstone, formed, like the clay, by the disintegration of the plutonic rock. The clay beds are similar to those which cover most of the northern islands, and contain silica, alumina, magnesia, and iron, but usually no lime, except in the form of gypsum, found in crevices. Portions of the clay cliffs exposed to the sun are covered with a fine efflorescence of sulphate of magnesia (Epsom salts). Professor Ehrenberg found in 1850, on examining specimens sent him by Dr Rink (Galathea Expedition), that this formation is a polycistina clay similar to that of Barbadoes.
