Adjoining this hamlet was a forest of cocoa-palms. We penetrated into it, and suddenly found ourselves, to our great astonishment, on the track of a well-worn footpath, which was probably, with the exception of the paths in Great Nicobar and Pulo Milù, in better condition than any other we had hitherto encountered in the Nicobar Islands. What more natural than to suppose that a path so well worn must necessarily lead to an important settlement? It passed first through an extensive and splendid palm-plantation, and afterwards through a very beautiful clump of leafy trees, fringing a little brook, whose channel, it being then the end of the dry season, was quite dried up. Frequently we were obliged to clamber over steep blocks of rock, with footsteps hewn in them by the hand of man, for facilitating the passage, and at last, after a scramble of several hours, highly interesting, but exceedingly fatiguing, we reached a cleared spot on the sea-beach, but without being able to discern the remotest trace of any human habitations. On the contrary, it seemed to admit of no doubt that this path, as also some spots that had been cleared, were nothing but the preparations for an intended settlement, which can only be successfully carried out here where the cocoa-palm and screw-pine have first struck root. Some of the sailors, who accompanied us as porters and escort, went forward as far as the extreme point of the bay, but there also they found no trace of any human abode. After a brief rest we returned by the same track, to the spot at which we had disembarked, where we were joined by some of the officers, who, more fortunate than ourselves, had encountered some of the natives, and had even seen them in their dwellings. They spoke of the interiors of the huts they visited as being quite as wretched as those on the other islands, only the inhabitants did not seem so shy or timorous. Far from this, they had regaled our lucky companions with palm-wine, and had accompanied them till they fell in with us. With this visit ended the thirty-second day of our stay in the Nicobar Archipelago, only one half of that period having been spent on land, the rest having been occupied in beating about against unfavourable winds. Before, however, we take our departure from this most interesting group of islands, _en route_ for the Sunda Islands and China, we shall be excused for briefly recapitulating the main results of our observations and investigations, while referring the reader for a more detailed specification of our labours to the various special divisions yet to appear.