In the Andamans and Nicobars: The Narrative of a Cruise in the Schooner "Terrapin"Kloss, C. Boden (Cecil Boden)
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In the Andamans and Nicobars: The Narrative of a Cruise in the Schooner "Terrapin"
Kloss, C. Boden (Cecil Boden)
Andaman and Nicobar Islands (India) -- Description and travel; Natural history -- India -- Andaman and Nicobar Islands
On the 10th we made sail, and proceeded a little further along the coast
to Ganges Harbour, anchoring just within its eastern point. If the chart
is correct, changes have taken place on the coast since the last survey.
We lay opposite a small stretch of flat land, and where the plan gives
the coast-line nearly straight, a little bay now exists, where stand
stumps of dead trees, about which the low tides expose a broad expanse
of black mud.
After wading through the mud to reach the shore, we found that much of
the low-lying ground was merely swamp. Part however, was covered with
tall, open jungle, in which were numbers of pigeon and parrots. There
were no monkeys, but tupais (_Tupaia nicobarica_) were plentiful. These
appear to be entirely arboreal in habits, and are quite as active as
squirrels in running along branches, or climbing about amongst smaller
twigs in search of insects. Their cry is a sort of trilling squeak,
which is easily confounded with the call of a bird.
In crossing to the further side we found plentiful traces of Shom
Pe[.n]--a faint path, a ruined hut, heaps of shells, and split
seed-cases of the _Barringtonia speciosa_. The edge of the land was
rapidly being eroded, and many tall casuarina trees, with roots
undermined by the water, lying prostrate in the sea. At either end,
this disappearing beach was hemmed in by rising ground and rocks, which
at its eastern termination contained a little stream and basin of good
water.
On the 12th we rowed about the shores of the harbour, landing every now
and then to search for the aborigines. The only signs of man's presence
discovered, however, were rows of stakes set up across the creeks in the
mangroves. One of these rows we utilised to hang our own net on, and
obtained there such an abundant catch of small fish that we returned the
greater part to the sea.
The shore-line is much more indented than the outline given on the
chart, and in the shallow water and mud of a little bay, rows of tree
trunks still stood, two or three hundred yards from the land. This
subsidence, however, is local in its occurrence, for everywhere else in
the Archipelago signs of elevation are markedly present, and it is to be
attributed to seismic agency--earthquakes having several times been
experienced in the group--and not to a general depression of the land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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