OBJECTS FROM NANKAURI HARBOUR.
CHAPTER IX
KAMORTA
The Old Settlement—The Cemetery—F. A. de Röepstorff—Mortality—Birds—The Harbour—Appearance of Kamorta—Dring Harbour—Olta-möit—Buffalo—Spirit Traffic—Cookery—Ceremonial Dress—A Visit from Tanamara—Geology—Flora—Topography—Population—Hamilton's Description.
On several occasions we crossed the harbour and visited the locality of the convict settlement formerly established on Kamorta, but given up in 1888, when the buildings were dismantled, and sepoys and prisoners withdrawn to Port Blair.
The jetty on which one lands is more than a hundred yards long, and although solidly constructed of coral blocks, is now in need of partial repair. To the right is a long sea-wall, and on the other hand a small boat harbour, both built of coral. Beyond the agent's house at the foot of the jetty, one walks along a grass-grown road shaded by an avenue of tall casuarinas, and passes several large wells of strong brickwork, and a large tank for rain water, with various other traces of past occupation, till on the hill-top one comes on the remains of the Government bungalow, of which only the foundations are now to be seen. A little farther on is the only building now standing—the old powder store—"where nothing's here that's worth defence, they leave a magazine!"
On another hill close by—from which are to be seen the whole stretch of the beautiful harbour, the distant forest-clad slopes of Kachal and the grassy interior of Kamorta—lies the little cemetery with its two occupants—Nicolas Shimmings, chief engineer of the R.I.M.S. Kwangtung, and Frederick Adolph de Röepstorff, a Dane by nationality, and for some time superintendent of the settlement. Tanamara told us of his death, which occurred in 1883. Complaint had been made that one of the sepoys of the small force stationed here was in the habit of stealing the natives' coconuts; him the superintendent reprimanded, and threatened to send to Port Blair for punishment. Next day the sepoy shot at and wounded de Röepstorff while the latter was in the act of mounting a horse. The injured man despatched a letter to the Andamans by a Burmese trader, but died before the arrival of a steamer, five days later. He was nursed and buried by the Nicobarese, who would not allow the Indian servants to approach him.[55] "He was," said Tanamara, "a good man, a very good man." He took much interest in all that surrounded him, and besides contributing accounts of the Andamans and Nicobars to the journals of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, he made large collections of lepidoptera for the Calcutta Museum, and compiled vocabularies of several of the local languages.[56]
Nowadays, all that marks our possession of these islands is the Colonial Jack, presided over by a Hindu; all that shows our past occupation, fallen brickwork, grass-grown roads and graves: these things, and the result of our contact with the native inhabitants. In the north, some knowledge of the English speech, and the beginning of education; here the suppression of piracy.