On return of the Commission to Calcutta their advice was soon acted on, and the late General (then Captain) H. Man was sent to Port Blair to formally re-annex the Andamans and put matters in train, and following him a body of convicts arrived in charge of Dr J. P. Walker, who was appointed first Superintendent. For some years the death-rate was excessive (averaging 18 per cent.), owing to the necessity of pushing forward clearing and building operations, and it was not until 1868, soon after the appointment of Colonel Man as Superintendent, that it fell to a more normal level (average for ten years, 2.7 per cent.). The pacification of the natives, by means of Homes, a school, and visits paid to the tribes by the Station gunboat, went steadily on, until there now remain but two or three groups of Andamanese from whom any hostility is to be feared. In 1872-3 the Andamans were formed in a Commissionership with the Nicobars, and a year later general attention was drawn to them by the death of Lord Mayo, Viceroy of India, at the hands of a convict. * * * * * The Andaman Islands are inhabited by people of pure Negrito blood, members of perhaps the most ancient race remaining on the earth, and standing closest to the primitive human type. Geologically, the islands are connected with the opposite mainland, so that in remote times migration was probably possible; and we find in the Malay Peninsula, and in the Philippines, which were at one time connected with it, aborigines who--known by various names, such as Semang, Jakun, etc., and Aeta--are the nearest existing relatives of the Andamanese. There is no reason to consider the Andamanese any other than the aborigines of the islands, for we know from their kitchen-middens, which are found throughout the group, that they occupied it in very remote times. From the examination of fragments of pottery, arrowheads, and other stone implements discovered in the shell-mounds, it is now believed that the locality was settled some time during the Pleistocene period, and certainly not later than the Neolithic age. "In the Andaman kitchen-middens have been found shells, pig-bones, pottery (referred to a stone age--at least to the Neolithic period--and almost identical with the fragments found in the Danish kitchen-middens), and stone implements. Every second stone picked up showed indications of being used in some way; some as hammers, others fastened to wood as rude hatchets, knives, etc.: a beautiful polished celt was found, indistinguishable from European or Indian celts of the Neolithic period, also a typical arrow-head--all of Tertiary sandstone."--Stoliczka. The possession by the natives, in recent times, of implements and weapons manufactured from wood and shells only, is easily accounted for by their having found these equally suitable to their needs, and far easier to construct.