ANDAMANS, :ilea-ma/1z. A chain of is lands politically attached to British India, situ ated toward the east side of the Bay of Bengal, between 10° and 14° N. lat. and about 93° E. long., 680 miles south. of the mouth of the Ganges (Map: Asia, J 7). The group covers an area of 2508 square miles, and consists of the threat and Little Andamans, divided by the Dun can Passage. Three large islands, the North, Mid dle, and South, and several smaller ones constitute the Great Andamans; the chief of the Little An damans are Interview, Outran), and Henry Law rence. With the Nicobar Islands (q.v.), they form a province under a chief emmnissioner resi dent at Port. Blair. Since 1858 the islands have been a penal settlement of India. Except where clearings have been made, the surface is densely covered with forests yielding valuable timber. Corn, rice, manioc, tea, potatoes, and artichokes are the chief agricultural products, and the cul tivation of cacao, indigo, and coffee is being in troduced. l'ort Blair, on the east side of South Island, a ml Port Cornwallis, on the same side of North Island, are two fine natural harbors. The principal islands have monthly steamboat com munication with Calcutta. The Andamanese, also called Mincopies, are a physieally uniform Negrito race, whose stature, however, has a wider range than generally thought. Their head-form tends to be braehyecphalic, suggesting relation ship with sonic of the natives of the Nicobar Islands to the south, and with broad-headed Ne gritos elsewhere. Their language, which has sev eral dialects, seems to be unrelated to any other tongue. Their culture is very primitive, but their weapons and industrial and art products show that they have not neglected their environ ment. They have also, though known only to
some of the older members of the more secluded communities, a mythology, with characteristic folk-lore tales. The intelligence of these people has been underestimated. The census of 1901 gives the aborigines as 1882, of whom 842 were females, divided into twelve small tribes. Lying in the route of the Arabs eastward and of the Malays westward, these islands bear traces of the influence of both, and since the establishment of the British penal colony, there is growing up a very mixed race of hybrids. The Andama nese have inhabited their territory since pre-his to•ic times. Flower (1879) and Keane (1896) both hold that they represent a primitive or gen eralized type, from which, on the one hand, the African negroes, and on the other the Melane sians, may have proceeded. (See NEGRITOS. ) Population, 1891, 15,609; 1901, 18,190, of which the convict element constitutes four-fifths. The convicts. are employed in reclaiming land and erecting government buildings. They are po lieed by a force of 645 men. The Andamans are mentioned by Arabic geographers of the ninth century, by Maroc, Polo in the thirteenth, and Conti in the fifteenth century, who gives the sig nifieat ion of the name as "Gold Islands." Hope town, on Viper Island, was the scene of the assassination by a Mohammedan convict of Earl Mayo, Governor-General of India, while on an of ficial tour of inspection in 1872. Consult: Man, The Aborigines of the Andaman Islands (Lon don, I 883), and "The Andaman Islands," in The Indian Antiquary, Volumes XXVIII. and XXX. (Bombay, 1899 and 1900).