OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2831, 24 July 1916, Page 3

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

VISIT TO THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS. The Andaman Islands are, and' have' been since 1858, a penal, settlement .for the Government of India. As great diiliculty is experienced in anyone save officials having business there in getting a permit from tho India Office to visit t..i islands, it' will interest many to learn of this little group in tho Bay of .Bengal, which, though only 150 miles from Capo Negrais, in Burma, are as isolated "by I regulation" as though they were a thousand miles distant, from the shore. •There is at present in Wellington a traveller who visited the group just before the war, whose, observations-are exceedingly interesting. He desoribes tho group as a little poradiae in a gorgeous Eastern setting. Even when there and mixing with tho people it is a little difficult to imagine that it is the abiding place of something like 17,000 male ami female Indian prisoners, whoso crimes have just escaped meriting capital punishment. There are always a couple of English regiments there-as a safeguard, but, curiously enough, these soldiers do not actually guard the prisoners. What guarding or overseeing is ncccssary is doiie, by prisoners whose good conduct has entitled them to assume such auties at tho dictation of the authorities, and it is said that they make excellent warders. Many old prisoners who have 'done tlieir fifteen or twenty years' imprisonment are allowed the liberty of the Islands under certain conditions, and these have gone into business there, and own. shops ,01' ply their trades just as though they were back in their native India. Few of them, comparatively, wish to return homo again. Somo of them aro quite well-to-do. One old man, who had secured the contract to cany 'the mails between tho different islands of the group for many years, was a wealthy man, and never evinced any desire to leave the group, though, he could do so if ho liked. •

One of the most peculiar clistoms of the Islands is the weekly parade of the marriageable women in the settlement, Every Saturday morning those young women who wish to be married arc veiled and paraded round the square, and the male prisoners wlio f )av e qualified for the privilege, and have satisfied the powers that be that they can afford to keep a wife, stand round' on the outside, and when they see a woman who "takea their eye" they pick her out, Ihe veil is lifted, and the woman lias. Hid option of saying that she will or will not marry the man in whoso eyes she has found favour. Naturally, a man selecting a bride from a procession ol heavily-voiled females is liable to get a shock on the veil being lifted, but he has to stick to his bargain if the lady is agreeable. On the woman's part she has only three chances. That is to say, having-refused two suitors, ; slio ba.s -to'accept' the third or banish the idea of marriage.

i'dr the officers and men of the regiments stationed in the Andamans there is plenty of sport. There are polo grounds, and ponies, hockey and cricket grounds, tenuis courts, and a very comfortable officers' club, unit there is a wide range of beautiful scenery in the various islands of the group, easily reached in steam or motor launches. The servants aro all convicts. Trouble with the prisoners is said to be very rare, but it was here that Lord llayo. when Viceroy of India, wa.s assassinated by a 'Mussulman prisoner. _ The Islands are a rich store of /wealth to the botanist and the eonchologist, and for that reason alone would attract many visitors were the conditions other than what Lhoy are. The Aiidainanese people are nearly extinct. They are smaN in stature, and nf a low Negrito type, and in their hunting in the bush still use the bow and arrow. th» latter being tipped with a very deadly poison, saii'l to be' extracted from tlio poison glands of a native snake that abounds in the swamps and forests.