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
Passing first close by the suburb of Aberdeen, which is on the mainland
just opposite Ross, we obtained a good view of the Cellular Jail, a huge
building of red-brown bricks, with long arms--three storeys in
height--stretching from a common centre like the rays of a starfish. It
has been built almost entirely from local resources, and with local
establishment and labour, and holds 663 cells and the accompanying jail
buildings. Here each newcomer is incarcerated in solitude for six
months, with the double intention of such confinement acting both as a
moral sedative and a warning of what may happen again if his behaviour
is not satisfactory in future.
We steamed along past the brickfields; the kilns, where, from the raw
coral, lime is manufactured; but as the salt cannot be thoroughly washed
out, and subsequently effloresces from the mortar, the result is a
rather inferior quality.
At Phoenix Bay, a little farther up the harbour, where we landed to
inspect the shipyard and workshops, are sheds fitted up with apparatus
for blacksmiths and latheworkers, carpenters and woodcarvers, where
occupation is provided for more than 600 skilled workmen. The numerous
boats one sees passing to and fro in the harbour are built here, for the
shipyard can undertake anything from a 250-ton lighter or 70-feet
steam-launch down to a half--rater or the smallest dinghy. The materials
for construction are close to hand, since the woods used (_padouk_ for
the planking and _pyimma_ for frames) are obtained from the neighbouring
forests.
Some years ago Phoenix Bay was a swamp, but now large, brick, steam
workshops and wooden sheds of the marine yard, in which the lighters and
launches are constructed and repaired, stand on the land reclaimed; and
connected with these is a slipway, one of the largest in India, that is
entirely of local construction--the whole of the ironwork of the
carriage, rails, wheels, and ratchet, having been cast on the spot.
Almost opposite Phoenix Bay, the station of Hopetown, conspicuous by
its aqueduct, stands on the northern shore. It was here that in 1872
Lord Mayo, the most popular of Indian Viceroys, was murdered by a
fanatical prisoner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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