CHAPTER XIV

GREAT NICOBAR-WEST AND SOUTH COASTS

"Domeat"-Malay Traders-Trade Prices-The Shom Pen Language-Place Names-Pulo Bábi-The growth of Land-Climbing a Palm TreeServitude-Population-Views on Marriage with the Aborigines-Towards the Interior-A Shom Pen Village-The Inhabitants-Canoe-buildingBarter-The West Coast-South Bay-Walker Island-Chang-ngehUp the Galathea River-Water-We leave the Nicobars and sail to Sumatra.

WE hove up anchor at 8 A.M. the hour at which a breeze usually sprang up-and sailed for Pulo Bábi, a few miles down the coast, taking as passenger an old man named Domeat who had been staying at Kópenhéat.

He produced a number of chits for our perusal, and from one we learned that it was Domeat-now a toothless, but sturdy old gentleman, with nutcracker jaws and a benevolent expression— who brought news of the recovery of the body of Captain Elton, commander of the station gunboat, who was drowned in the surf while attempting to land at Trinkat Sambelong* village, on the east coast, in March 1881.

Most of the letters were written by Asiatics, and from them. it seemed that the last Malay vessel to call at the islands arrived in 1877. Many formerly came to purchase coconuts, but this people, like our own nation, has been ousted from the trade by the inhabitants of China and the Indian Empire.

According to our informant, the Chinese pay the coast natives one packet of tobacco (value 24d.) for three bundles of rattan, while the Nicobarese, who act merely as middlemen, and have

* Native name = Láful.

PLACE NAMES

155 the export trade in their hands, only give the Shom Pen one packet for six bundles! The bush aborigines have no settled dwelling-places, but wander about, although they have good gardens established in various localities. Their language is quite distinct from the Nicobarese,* but each knows enough of the others' speech to make themselves mutually understood. Asked, however, whether further south we could get a man who knew the Shom Pen language, Domeat replied: "When one of us sees a Shom Pen he runs away, and when a Shom Pen sees a Nicobar man he spears him!"†

Misunderstandings frequently occurred when we talked to him about the various places on the coast. The name given on the chart is often not known to the natives: the Chinese have another name, which is not given on the chart, and the natives have a third, but are generally familiar with that used by the traders.

I believe the following to be correct :

+"The coast natives, man for man, are superior to the Shom Pen, and regard themselves so both physically and mentally. I have known of a lot of the latter (estimated at about 20) attacking a coast hut in which there were only two men. On these showing resistance and wounding a couple of the Shom Pen with wooden spears, thrown from inside the hut, the latter fled, carrying away

We arrived off the village at II A.M., and worked in to an anchorage against a land breeze. The junks in whose company we had been at Kondul were already in the harbour-a square indentation, fringed with coral. With a look-out at the mast-head we got in without accident, and anchored in a fairly sheltered position, but some distance outside the other vessels. Small streams debouch in either corner of the bay; but the village, which consists of a dozen or more houses, and is the largest on the west coast, lies to the south of the harbour, with the usual accompaniment of numerous coco palms.

As a heavy surf was breaking on the reef fronting the houses, we rowed up the bay and landed by a small hut, beside which was a well of good water, and from thence reached the village by a path leading through scrub and many screw-pines.

Interviewing the headman, we learnt that a Shom Pen settlement lay half a day's journey in the interior, and having arranged with Nyam (the headman) to guide us on the morrow, we set out, accompanied by his brother Puchree, on a stroll through the village.

This really consists of two settlements-that nearest the bay, Pulo Rotan or Koé, and the other to the south, which at high tide is cut off from the mainland by a marshy channel-Pulo Bábi or Kanal. There are more houses, both round and square, than appear from seawards, but several are uninhabited and falling to pieces. Graves, placed between the houses, were marked by peeled sticks and young saplings, on which a foot or so of the branches had been left.

The land on which the village stood was of very recent formation, consisting entirely of sand, coral blocks, and débris of the roughest kind.

It would seem that the Nicobars are not only an area of elevation (as shown in Kar Nicobar, Trinkat, etc.), but also one of growth, as appears to be the case in the islands where there

the two wounded men. I have never heard of Shom Pen venturing to attack the coast people unless they were in superior numbers and could take them by surprise," writes Mr E. H. Man, however.