A further scientific exploration of the Nicobar group was made by the naturalists attached to the Danish corvette _Galatea_ in the course of their voyage round the world in the years 1845-7. A thorough examination of the Nicobars was one of the chief objects of the expedition set on foot under the auspices of the Danish Government. On the 25th January, 1846, at Nangkauri, Captain Steen Bille took formal possession of this group of islands in the name of H.M. the King of Denmark. Two natives, father and son, named respectively Luha and Angre, the former resident in Malacca, and the latter in Enuang, were on that occasion installed as chief magistrates; each being at the same time provided with a staff bearing the cypher of Christian VIII., and instructed, by means of a document drawn up in the English and Danish languages, on the subject of their duties, which consisted principally in hoisting the Danish Standard on the arrival of foreign ships in the harbour of Nangkauri.[7] After the decease of Christian VIII., the Danish Government, in consequence of the violent political agitations of the period, did not show itself disposed to make practical use of their possession of the Nicobar Islands by any lasting colonization, but on the contrary in the year 1848 dispatched the royal corvette _Valkyrien_ to the Archipelago, to bring away the flag and bâtons.[8] In consequence of this, according to "Thornton's Gazetteer of India," the chiefs of the island of Kar-Nicobar hoisted the English flag, and through certain English merchants resident in Moulmein, expressed a wish to be permitted to place themselves under the protection of the British Crown. This information, however, seems to be inaccurate, in so far as it professes to describe the conduct of the native chiefs. The inhabitants, it is true, hoist any flag given to them, because they are fond of imitating European customs, and by so doing believe they secure themselves against the pretensions of other nations; but there is nothing they so much dread as a regular occupation of the islands, and on every appearance of a war-ship are forthwith filled with alarm lest they should be about to be deprived of their liberty, and--their cocoa-nuts. Indeed they have a saying widely diffused among them, probably through the craft of some smart chiefs, that whenever a European should settle among them all the cocoa-nuts will drop from the trees, and they will thus see themselves deprived for ever of their most important means of subsistence. It is, on the contrary, more probable that the English ship captains, who trade with these islands in order the better to secure their highly profitable trade in cocoa-nuts, made some propositions to the East Indian Government to take possession of this important group, by a similar procedure as that by which the Andaman islands were annexed somewhat later.