The inhabitants of Carnicobar enjoy good health, and meet with Few accidents; and their skill in medicine and surgery is not greater than their need of it. Their mode of curing the sting of a scorpion, or centiped, is this : They take the under jaw of a small fish, having two rows of teeth as sharp as needles : these arc forcibly struck with a piece of wood, by way of hammer, into the swelling, till it bleed freely, and the diseased part is then bound up with certain leaves tiil the cure is com pleted. Mr Hamilton mentions an instance of this mode of treatment which he witnessed, being attended with perfect success in the course of twenty-four hours. When a man dies, all his moveables, as has been alrea dy stated, arc buried with him; his death is mourned by the whole village, and his wife, according to custom. must either consent to have a joint of one of her fingers amputated, or submit to have a deep notch cut in one of the pillars of her hut. Mr Hamilton gives the follow ing account of the funeral of an old woman, at which he was present. " When we went into the house, which had belonged to the deceased, we found it full of her female relations ; some of them were employed in wrap ping up the corpse in leaves and cloth, and others tear ing in pieces all the cloth which had belonged to her. In another house hard by, the men of the village, with a great many others from the neighbouring towns, were sitting drinking sours and smoking tobacco. In the mean time, two stout young fellows were busy digging a grave in the sand near the house. When the women had done with the corpse, they set up a most hideous howl, upon which the people began to assemble round the grave, and four men went up into the house to bring down the body ; in doing this, they were much interrupt ed by a young man, son to the deceased, who endeavour ed with all his might to prevent them, but finding it in vain, he clung round the body, and was carried to the grave along with it; there, after a violent struggle, he was turned away and conducted back to the house. The corpse was now put into the grave, and the lashings which bound the legs and arms cut. All the live stock which had been the property of the deceased, consisting of about half a dozen hogs, and as many fowls, was killed and flung in above it. A man then approached with a bunch of leaves stuck upon the end of a pole, which he swept two or three times gently along the corpse, and then the grave was filled up. During the ceremony the women continued to make the most horri ble vocal concert imaginable ; the men said nothing. A
few clays afterwards, a kind of monument was erected over the grave, with a pole upon it, to which long strips of cloth of different colours were hung." Lord Valen tia saw, around the village which he visited, tall pieces of bamboo stuck into the ground, each of which, he was told, marked the spot where a person had been in terred.
The Carnicobarians carry on some trade. Their cocoa nuts are reckoned the finest in that part of India, and there is a regular demand for than from Pegu, and va rious other quarters. The articles which they require in return are cloth of different colours, hatchets, and hanger blades. These last they use in cutting down the nuts. They usually purchase a greater quantity of cloth than is necessary for their own consumption, which they carry to Chowry, a small island to the southward, and exchange it For canoes, which they cannot make for themselves. For this purpose they send a large fleet of boats every rear in the month of November, and these they navigate, not by a compass, of which they know nothing, but by the help of the sun and stars. They arc very anxious to procure tobacco and arrack ; but these, along with knives, handkerchiefs, and other useful arti cles, they generally expect to receive in presents. Lord Valentia says, that they required money for the provi• sions which were obtained from them. To the coin of other countries, however, for they have none of their own, they do not :attach any value as a circulating me dium. They regard it merely as furnishing them with ornaments, which they esteem beautiful : and this is cor roborated by his lordship adds respecting their preference for dollars; strings of which, Mr I lamilton informs us, arc worn by the young women about their necks. They are said to be good judges of silver and gold, which they very readily distinguish from the baser metals that arc sometimes, in the course of trade, at tempted to be substituted in their place. Sec Mr Ila milton's Short Description of Carnicobar, in the Asiatic Researches, vol.ii. p. 337, et seg. Lord Valentia's Voy ages and Travels, p. 33, which is accompanied with a view by Mr Salt of one side of the island of Carnicobar. Mr Dalrymple, in his Oriental Repertory, vol. i. p. 104, mentions, that, in 1687, Captain Weldon surveyed the Nicobars; " which survey," he adds, " with the history of them by a Spanish priest, who had resided there many years, was sent to the company, and may possibly be still extant." (7)