POSITION OF THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS -- ORIGIN OF THE NATIVES -- THEIR ROVING HABITS AND LACK OF CLOTHING -- THEIR HATRED OF STRANGERS -- THE NATIVES AND THE STEAMER -- APPEARANCE OF THE WOMEN -- THE ENORMOUS BOW AND SKILL OF THE MINCOPIE ARCHERS -- VARIOUS MODES OF FISHING -- EXCELLENCE OF THEIR CANOES, AND MODE OF MAKING THEM -- THE LONG PADDLES -- THE SHIP’S CREW BEATEN BY THE MINCOPIE CANOE MEN -- CANNIBALISM NOT PRACTISED IN THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS -- INGENIOUS FIREPLACES AND METHOD OF COOKING -- WANT OF ARCHITECTURAL SKILL -- EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN, AND THEIR GAMES -- POWERS OF SWIMMING -- MATRIMONIAL ARRANGEMENTS -- DEATH AND BURIAL -- THE NICOBAR ISLANDS -- APPEARANCE AND COSTUME OF THE INHABITANTS -- THE CROSS-BOW AND ITS ARROW -- A PRIMITIVE HAMMOCK -- TOMBS IN THE NICOBAR ISLANDS. We will now pass to the westward, and travel gradually through the wonderful group of islands which extends almost from Asia to America, and which is known by the general title of Polynesia. One or two of them will have to be omitted for the present, so as not to break the continuity of races, but will be described before we pass upward through America, from Tierra del Fuego to the Esquimaux. * * * * * In the Bay of Bengal, and not much to the eastward of India, is seen a group of islands, named the Andamans. They are of considerable length, but very narrow, seldom exceeding twenty miles in breadth, and are arranged very much after the fashion of the New Zealand islands, though on a smaller scale. These islands exhibit a phenomenon almost unparalleled in the history of the human race. They lie close to India, a country in which a high state of civilization has been reached many centuries ago. They are almost in the middle of the track which is traversed by multitudes of ships, and yet their inhabitants are sunk in the deepest depths of savage degradation. Even the regular visits made by the Chinese vessels to the Andaman coasts, for the purpose of procuring the trepang, have had not the least effect upon them; and they afford perhaps the most perfect example of savage life which the surface of the earth can show.