Teressa is 34 square miles in area, and rises in the north to nearly 900 feet. The bed rock is serpentine, covered with sandstone, and there is a fringe of recent coralline alluvium round the shore, while beds of coral on the high land of the interior indicate upheaval since the formation of the older alluvium.
The soil of the grass-lands is of an igneous clay formation—magnesian clay, formed by disintegration of the plutonic rocks, whose upheaval in two successive stages brought the Nicobars into existence. Overlying it in many places are the beds of coral, and to these formations the grassy downs of the island are confined—lallang, with occasional screw-pines, a bracken-like fern (Gleichenia dichotoma), delicate ground orchids, and various scrubby plants (Kydia calycina), which point to the occurrence of annual fires. The transition from grass-land to high forest, which appears on the sandstone, is very sudden.
The graceful Nicobar palm (Ptychoraphis augusta) is common in the jungle. Whole groves of this beautiful tree fill the moister ravines, and give a characteristic appearance to the forest. Nearly equally conspicuous are large numbers of Sterculia campanulata.
Fruit and vegetables are the same as are found on Kar Nicobar, with the addition of tobacco, of which several small fields have been raised from seed imported from the west coast of India.
The census returns of 1901 give the population of Teressa as 624, making the number of inhabitants 50 more than in 1886.
Bompoka, having the appearance of a truncated cone, and 634 feet high, is an oblong-shaped island, about 4 square miles in area, separated from Teressa by a channel 50 fathoms in depth, and scarcely more than 2 miles wide. Its inhabitants, who number less than a hundred, and the people of Teressa, have an interesting legend to account for the formation of the island. Once upon a time a vessel, having a prince for its captain, visited Teressa, where he, on landing, was murdered by the inhabitants. His wife was taken on shore and treated with the greatest respect; but, since the spot on which her husband's blood was shed was always before her eyes, she was very miserable. One night, however, she was advised in a dream, by her mother, to remove the bloody spot from Teressa if she would be happy. This she did, and Bompoka was thus separated from that island.[59]
The geological formation and the vegetation are similar to those of Teressa. The inhabitants have good plantations of fruit-trees—papaya, plantains, and limes—neatly fenced to keep out the pigs. At Poahat, on the west coast, good water is to be obtained from a stream at the back of the village.
These two islands, with perhaps Chaura, seem those referred to by Hamilton as the Somerera Islands, so called because "on the south end of the largest island is a hill that resembles the top of an umbrella or somerera. They are fine champaign ground, and, all but one, well inhabited. The island Somerera lies about 8 leagues to the northward of Ning and Goury (the Nankauri group), and is well inhabited for the number of villages that show themselves as we sail along the shores. The people, like those of Ning and Goury, are very courteous, and bring the product of their island aboard of ships to exchange for commodities. Silver nor gold they neither have nor care for, so the root of all evil can never send out branches of misery, or bear fruit to poison their happiness! The men's clothing is a bit of string round the middle, and about 1½ feet of cloth, 6 inches broad, tucked before and behind, within that line. The women have a petticoat from the navel to the knee, and their hair close shaved; but the men have their hair left on the upper part of the head and below the crown, but cut so short that it hardly comes to their ears."
Chaura, which lies 7 miles north-westward of Teressa, has an area of about 3 square miles only. It is generally low, and the only jungle it possesses is a little at the south end, where it rises almost perpendicularly in a rocky pinnacle to a height of about 350 feet, having the appearance, with the contiguous low portion, of a broad-brimmed hat. It was on this account termed Sombrero by the Portuguese navigators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who were probably the first Europeans to have any commercial dealings with the Nicobarese.
The people are very well off, on account of their trade in canoes and pottery: but to obtain the articles imported by the traders, canoe voyages are made to other islands, as the anchorage at Chaura is exceedingly precarious, and after the native requirements are provided for there are but few nuts to spare for trade, so that vessels are hardly ever known to call. The island is the best cultivated in the group, and besides abounding in oranges, limes, and other fruit, is covered with coconuts; and toddy being common, drunkenness is fairly prevalent. One of the institutions of the place is the door mat; for a large flat sponge, which is found in numbers on the reefs, is placed at the bottom of every house-ladder, for the natives to wipe their feet on!