Like many other savage races, the Mincopies make a kind of festivity on each new moon; and as soon as the thin crescent appears they salute it after their odd fashion, and get up a dance. Their dances are rather grotesque, each performer jumping up and down, and kicking himself violently with the sole of his foot, so as to produce a smart slapping sound. This is the dance which is mentioned in the preceding account of the two captives. When a Mincopie dies, he is buried in a very simple manner. No lamentations are made at the time; but the body is tied in a sitting position, with the head on the knees, much after the fashion employed among the Bechuanas, and described on page 300. It is then buried, and allowed to decay, when the remains are dug up, and the bones distributed among the relatives. The skull is the right of the widow, who ties it to a cord and hangs it round her neck, where it remains for the rest of her life. This outward observance is, however, all that is required of her, and is the only way in which she troubles herself to be faithful to the memory of her dead husband. It is rather strange that, though the Andamaners make no lamentations on the death of a relative, they do not altogether dispense with these expressions of sorrow, but postpone them to the exhumation and distribution of the relics, when each one who gets a bone howls over it for some time in honor of the dead. THE NICOBAR ISLANDS. Immediately to the south of the Andaman Islands, and barely thirty miles distant, lie the NICOBAR ISLANDS. The group consists of nine tolerably large islands, and several of much smaller size. One of the large islands, called Great Nicobar, is twenty miles long by eight wide, while Little Nicobar is barely half these dimensions. The islands are singularly fertile, and abound in various kinds of vegetation, especially in the cocoa-nut palm, not a specimen of which is to be found in the Andaman Islands. This curious fact is accounted for by the character of the Andamaners, who have an almost superstitious love for the cocoa-nut. If one of the nuts be washed ashore, it is always broken up and eaten; and if perchance one of the fruit happens to escape the sharp eyes of the natives and to germinate, its green feathery shoots are sure to attract the attention of the first Mincopie who passes in that direction. A similar barrier to the production of the cocoa-nut is found on the coast of Australia.