In the island of Teressa the Austrian Expedition had a more special interest, in so far as it is by no means improbable that the adventurous Bolts, who in 1778 visited the Nicobar Archipelago in the Austrian ship Joseph and Theresa, named this island, as he already had done in the case of a fort on the coast of Africa, after the renowned Austrian Empress, which, corrupted by the native dialect, had been gradually transformed into Teressa or Terassa.
At sunrise on the 17th March there loomed on the horizon in a S.E. direction, first the island of Meroe, then the two small islands of Treis and Track, and lastly the long mountain-chain of Little Nicobar, with the beautiful island of Pulo Milù. The breeze was light, and a current of a velocity
of five miles an hour, which ran rushing and seething like a mill-race through the calm sea, so completely checked our progress that the anchor had to be let go. This procured us the very unexpected pleasure of visiting these two small wooded islands. Owing to the heavy surf, we only succeeded in effecting a landing by the assistance of some natives, whom we happened to fall in with in their canoes off these all but uninhabited islets. Treis is a veritable pigeon island, full of the most various and beautiful species of that bird; nevertheless we could only procure a single specimen of the exceedingly elegant Nicobar dove. Here too it was that the geologist found the first traces of brown coal, which however did not present itself in layers suitable for domestic use.
The same afternoon, with the turn of the tide the current set in our favour, and towards 10 P.M. we reached the roadstead protected to the eastward by the northernmost point of Little Nicobar, to the westward by the island of Pulo Milù, and southward by the mainland of Little Nicobar itself. It is not very large, but it has excellent holding ground, and would be available at all seasons as a harbour of refuge for vessels. As most of the villages of Little Nicobar lie on the N.W. and S. sides of the island, and were with difficulty accessible from our anchorage, it was thought preferable to select the small but beautiful island of Pulo Milù for our visit. Already, while we were lying at anchor in front of the island of Treis, a few natives had come on board the
frigate, and had shown much confidence. They possessed all the characteristics of the residents of Nangkauri, and they also spoke, with but slight variations, the same idiom. Only for certain objects, and those, singular to say, articles of the very first necessity, such as cocoa-nut trees, palms, screw-pines, and the like, did they employ different expressions.
The island of Pulo Milù, with its variety of forest-vegetation, and its charming woodland-scenery, displays all the beauty and all the marvels of the tropics. The screw-pine (of the family of Pandaneæ), that peculiar tree which imparts to the forests of Asia a character so different from those of America, is seen here in exceptional size and majesty. Nowhere have we met with this marvellous tree growing in such luxuriance as on Pulo Milù, where it appears in such quantities as to resemble a forest, and leaves an impression of such lonely wildness as makes one almost imagine it a remnant of some earlier period of our earth. Wondering at the capricious vagaries of nature, the traveller contemplates these extraordinary trees, which have leaves arranged in spiral order like the dragon trees, trunks like those of palms, boughs like those trees presenting the ordinary characteristics of foliage, fruit-cones like the coniferœ, and yet have nothing in common with all these plants, so that they form a family by themselves. On Pulo Milù we saw some of these trees with slim smooth stems 40 or 50 feet in height, which are nourished by and supported upon a pile of roots of 10 to 12 feet high, resembling a neatly-finished conical piece of wicker-work,
composed of spindle-shaped staves. Many of these roots do not reach the soil, and in this undeveloped state these atmospheric roots assume the most peculiar shapes. Higher up the same formation is repeated among the branches, from which depend beautiful massy fruit-cones, a foot and a half in length, by one in thickness, which, when ripe, are of a splendid orange hue.
The screw-pine is not cultivated in the Nicobar Islands; it grows wild in the utmost luxuriance, and, after the cocoa-nut, is for the natives the most important plant that furnishes them with subsistence. The immense fruit-cones borne by this tree consist of several single wedge-shaped fruits, which when raw are uneatable, but boiled in water, and subjected to pressure, give out a sort of mealy mass, the "Melori" of the Portuguese, and called by the natives "Laróhm," which is also occasionally used with the fleshy interior of the ripe fruit, and forms the daily bread of the islanders. The flavour of the mass thus prepared strongly resembles that of apple-marmalade, and is by no means unpalatable to Europeans. The woody, brush-like fibres of the fruit which remain behind, after the mealy contents have been squeezed out, are made use of by the natives as natural brooms and brushes, while the dried leaves of the Pandanus serve instead of paper to surround their cigarettes.
At Pulo Milù, as is yet more markedly the case among the southernmost islands, the cocoa-palm does not grow so luxuriantly as on Kar-Nicobar, and to this circumstance may
be chiefly ascribed the fact that the natives are not so liberal as at the last-named island. The Swedish naturalist, Dr. Rink, who has so largely and valuably added to our stock of information respecting the Nicobar group, resided here for a considerable time with some forty Chinese labourers, and, with a view to ultimate colonization, had caused to be cut through the forest several paths, by means of which this island has been rendered much more permeable than any other in the Archipelago. The selection was an extremely happy one, and had the projected colonization of the island been carried into effect, very different results would have been obtained than those of poor Dr. Rosen in Nangkauri Harbour. Next to Kar-Nicobar, it has been clearly decided that Pulo Milù is the most suitable spot for a first settlement, in the event of any European power or any capitalist undertaking to solve the problem of colonizing this Archipelago.