According to our informant, the Chinese pay the coast natives one packet of tobacco (value 2-1/2d.) for three bundles of rattan, while the Nicobarese, who act merely as middlemen, and have the export trade in their hands, only give the Shom Pe[.n] one packet for six bundles! The bush aborigines have no settled dwelling-places, but wander about, although they have good gardens established in various localities. Their language is quite distinct from the Nicobarese,[81] but each knows enough of the others' speech to make themselves mutually understood. Asked, however, whether further south we could get a man who knew the Shom Pe[.n] language, Domeat replied: "When one of us sees a Shom Pe[.n] he runs away, and when a Shom Pe[.n] sees a Nicobar man he spears him!"[82]
Misunderstandings frequently occurred when we talked to him about the various places on the coast. The name given on the chart is often not known to the natives: the Chinese have another name, which is not given on the chart, and the natives have a third, but are generally familiar with that used by the traders.
_Chart._ _Trade Name._ _Native Name._ Pulo Kunyi, Pulo Kunyi, Pulo Kunyi. Casuarina Bay, ---- Teh-hmeul. Dagmar R., ---- Ta-tí-al. Kópenhéat, Telok Bintang, Kópenhéat. Táeangha, Pulo Nyur, Kassandun. Koé, Pulo Rotan, Koé. ---- Pulo Bábi, Kánal. Henpoin, Pulo Bharu, Henpoin. Megapode Island, Pulo Kotah, ---- Henhóaha, Pulo Paha, Henhóa. Chang-ngeh, Pulo Chaura, Chang-ngeh. Galathea R., ---- Sakheer. ---- ---- Badói.
We arrived off the village at 11 A.M., and worked in to an anchorage against a land breeze. The junks in whose company we had been at Kondul were already in the harbour--a square indentation, fringed with coral. With a look-out at the masthead we got in without accident, and anchored in a fairly sheltered position, but some distance outside the other vessels. Small streams debouch in either corner of the bay; but the village, which consists of a dozen or more houses, and is the largest on the west coast, lies to the south of the harbour, with the usual accompaniment of numerous coco palms.
As a heavy surf was breaking on the reef fronting the houses, we rowed up the bay and landed by a small hut, beside which was a well of good water, and from thence reached the village by a path leading through scrub and many screw-pines.