The bed rock is a calcareous sandstone, easily disintegrated, and overlaid by a deep soil capable of sustaining a rich and varied vegetation. The hills are thickly wooded from base to summit, and there are no grassy spaces like those found on the northern islands.
The nature of the forest varies according to position and soil. In the beach forest, Pandanus larum and P. odoratissimus, Hibiscus tiliaceus, Barringtonia speciosa, Terminalia catappa, and Calophyllum inophyllum, are extremely plentiful; in the littoral forest of the level inlets, Mimusops littoralis, Calophyllum spectabile (canoe wood), and Eugenias, are the best represented species; while palms (Ptychoraphis augusta and Areca catechu) and cane-brakes are common in the moister parts. The high forest of the hills contains fine specimens of Terminalia procera, C. spectabile, Myristica irya, Artocarpus lakoocha, and Garcinia speciosa. No Dipterocarpus trees occur.
The population of Little Nicobar and Pulo Milo is 67: in fact, with the exception of Kondul, the inhabitants are fewer than those of any other island of the group. Its people speak, with some variations, the dialect of Nankauri: only for certain objects, and these, singular to say, of first necessity—coconuts, palms, pandanus, etc.—do they employ different expressions.[70] The same language is spoken by the people of Great Nicobar. According to Hamilton, they all partook, two hundred years ago, of the unpolished nature of their mountainous islands, and were more uncivil and surly than those of the northward!
Should the group again receive a European settlement, I know of no spot more suited to the purpose than this: in accommodation for shipping only is it excelled by the splendid harbour at Nankauri; in all else it is far superior—in the formation and greater area of ground, in fertility of soil, and in the presence of water.
We landed first on Little Nicobar near some ruined huts which once formed the village of Makachiaṅ, deserted since 1898, when the few remaining people either died or removed elsewhere; and after passing through a belt of coco palms, found ourselves in the jungle.
Much of the surface was level; but here and there little chains of sandstone hills, rising two or three hundred feet, wound about. The trees were of immense height, and in many places beneath them one moved about as freely as in an English forest.
Although this open vegetation is much more pleasant to traverse, it is not half so satisfactory for collecting purposes as the denser jungle, for it contains far less, both in variety and numbers, of birds and animals.
Megapodes, singly, in pairs, or in little flocks, ran about and sought busily for food, calling to each other meanwhile, until, alarmed by the sight of such unwonted intruders as white men, they scurried swiftly away. Overhead, so high as to be almost out of shot, pigeons, grackles, and parrots fluttered and cried, while, running up and down the branches, we saw, for the first time, the Nicobar tupai or tree-shrew, a little insectivorous animal, which, at a casual glance, might be taken for a squirrel. They were very common; but, unlike their representatives in the Malay Peninsula, etc., which are ground animals, we saw them only in the trees.[71]
It was soon evident that we had no cause to regret not having obtained more monkeys at Kachal, for here they abounded; and after discovering how common they were we would cold-bloodedly arrange every morning as to who should murder the specimen for the day.
Here a new bird was added to the islands' fauna (and to science) in the shape of a little Rhinomyias, quietly clothed in dull-brown plumage, which frequented the undergrowth of dense jungle and possessed a rather sweet note.