After leaving Port Blair, where we got up anchor at half-past three in the morning to make the most of a light breeze, we sailed slowly along the coast of South Andaman, until, rounding the point of the south-east corner, we came to anchor in Macpherson Strait. Just outside the port we met the R.I.M.S. _Elphinstone_ returning from a census-taking visit to the Nicobars; three or four times a year she makes a ten days' trip round the group, stopping at a few of the more important places; and these cruises are almost the only thing that brings home to the natives the fact that they are under the British raj. For some distance south of the Settlement the land consists of undulating grassy hills, dotted with coco palms, and streaked by gullies, in which dark clumps of jungle still remain. It is an ideal country for game, and some years ago hog-deer were introduced; but, although they have multiplied, they are very rarely seen, and have afforded but little sport. Nearer the strait, the hills by the coast are still covered with forest; and between the stretches of sandy shore at their feet grow luxuriant thickets of mangroves. Rutland Island, rising on the east in tall precipitous cliffs, on the north slopes gently to the strait, which on both sides is bordered by alternate tracts of yellow beach and bright green mangrove. We hauled round Bird's Nest Cape--a bare rocky headland of serpentine, still producing those edible delicacies which are responsible for the name--and, with a man aloft to con a passage along the coral-reef, carefully avoided a rock near mid-channel, and took up a berth in quiet waters about a mile from the entrance of the strait. When sailing along little known shores, especially in the tropics, a look-out man should always be stationed at the masthead, for from that place dangers of reef and rock unnoticed from the deck are plainly visible. Year by year coral-reefs increase, and banks alter so greatly that entire reliance cannot be placed on the chart, even though it be of comparatively recent date. We landed on South Andaman in a little bay, whose waters lapped a beach of golden sand. It was, as usual, nearly filled with coral, but fortunately the tide was never so low that we could not land directly on the shore. To left and right the land rose in gentle hills, on the one hand forest, and on the other grass-clothed, but beyond the centre, where it was flat, lay an expanse of tangled swamp. Although their tracks, made since the last high tide, ran all along the beach, we saw no natives then or later; but just within the bush we found an old camping-place--cold ashes, heaps of broken shells, and a dilapidated hut about 6 feet square and high, made of light branches stuck in the ground, with tops drawn together and covered with a few palm leaves laid stem downwards.