This same chronicler met a native of the Andamans at Acheen in 1694, and says of the incident: "The Andamaners had a yearly custom to come to the Nicobar Islands with a great number of small praus, and kill and take prisoners as many Nicobarians as they could overcome." During one of these raids, however, the long-suffering Nicobarese armed themselves—it does not seem to have been their custom to resist—and, gathering together, gave battle to the invaders, and utterly defeated them; and on this occasion the man under discussion, then a boy of ten or twelve years, who had accompanied his father, was taken prisoner, and, spared on account of his youth, was made a slave.
Some years went by, and he was sold to the Achinese, who, being Mohammedans, taught him their religion; and he remained in Sumatra, until, on the occasion of his master's death, he was manumitted.
He had now become very homesick, and so, obtaining a boat, he set out during the fine season from the islands of Gomus (Pulo Bras) and Pulo-weh. "From here the furthermost of the Nicobars may be seen, and so one island may be seen from another, from the southernmost of those to Chitty-Andeman (Little Andaman), which is southernmost of the Andamans, distant from Acheen about a hundred leagues." Once home, and made much of by his relatives, who recognised him although he had long been considered dead, he acquainted them with his knowledge of God, "and would have persuaded his countrymen to learn of him how to adore God and to obey His laws, but he could make no converts."
After a month or so of the old life, he returned to Acheen with a quantity of quicksilver, which, he said, abounded in some of the Andamans; and thereafter he made several other voyages, always returning with a similar cargo. "Some Mohammedan faquirs would have accompanied him, but he would not suffer them, because, he said, he could not engage for their safety among his countrymen. When I saw him he was in company of a seid, whom I carried as a passenger to Surat, and from whom I had this account of his adventures."
Trustworthy history of the islands now begins; for, at the close of the eighteenth century, the Honourable East India Company sent small expeditions, under Colonel Colebrooke and Captain Blair, to report on the possibilities of the group. Their accounts were so satisfactory, that, in 1789, the latter was sent to establish a penal settlement in what was then called Port Cornwallis—now Port Blair.
All went well with Blair and his colony until 1792, when orders were received from Calcutta to transfer the whole establishment to the harbour in North Andaman, which, in turn, was to be known as Port Cornwallis. The first place of that name was henceforth for a time dubbed Old Harbour.
Colonel Syme, who was sent on a mission to Ava in 1795, visited the establishment on his voyage out, and found there a population of 700, including a company of sepoys. He estimated the aborigines at 2000 to 2500, and gives a very unflattering description of them. They then used rafts of bamboo in addition to canoes.[96]
The new settlement proved so unhealthy, that, after an existence of four years, its abandonment was decided on: the prisoners were transferred to Penang, and the troops returned to Bengal.[97]
For many years now, the group remained untenanted by a foreign element, and its isolation was broken only by the rendezvous at Port Cornwallis, in 1824, of the fleet carrying the army of Sir Archibald Campbell to Rangoon for the first Burmese war; by the murder, while ascertaining the mineral possibilities of the islands, of Dr Heifer, a Russian scientist employed by the H.E.I.C.; and by the simultaneous wrecks in 1844, on Sir John Lawrence Island, of the troopships Runnymede and Briton, which, in a hurricane one inky night, were flung, unknown to each other until morning dawned, right over the reef in among the trees of the jungle. Hardly a life was lost.
Before the Andamans again became the field of Government activity, the Cocos group, which lie 20 miles to the north of Great Andaman, were the scene of an unofficial attempt at colonisation.[98] The first settlers were two men on their way to Australia, who, struck with the beauty of the Great Coco, with its shore covered with innumerable coco palms and other trees, gave up their original plan, and were left there in the early part of 1849. There were no inhabitants; but the islands were frequented during the north-east monsoon by people from Tenasserim and Arakan, who came for the coconuts that were so plentiful. The only animals were rats; but the bays abounded with fish and turtle, and water was obtained by sinking wells in the beach.
In the middle of July, the Flying Fish—the ship that had landed the first settlers—brought a second batch from Moulmein, and the population then consisted of four men, two women, and four children, with a small number of Burmese and a few Lascars.
Some months passed, and the island remained unvisited; and the whole story of that time is one of incompetence, laziness, sickness, and starvation. Stores failed; while food procurable on the island only consisted of turtles, turtles' eggs, fish, and coconuts. The settlers were, besides, suffering from dysentery, fever, and other complaints, brought on by an unaccustomed mode of life, in dwellings that were mere hovels, and subjection to the inclemency of the rainy season. Their spirits became depressed, and despair succeeding discontent, they were more like an unfortunate shipwrecked party than immigrants who had landed to make a new home. Several of the colonists fell a prey to despondency, that in some cases amounted almost to mental derangement. Some of them died, and those who were rescued from that fate were brought away from the island in an utter state of destitution, emaciated in body and almost silly in intellect.
On October 29 the remaining settlers—of whom seven had died—were taken off, and reconveyed to Moulmein by the Company's ship Proserpine.[99]
In 1855, measures were proposed at Calcutta—for the Andamans were then an appanage of the East India Company—for the repression of the outrages practised by the Andamanese on those crews shipwrecked on their shores, and two years later—on the conclusion of the Mutiny—it was determined that a penal settlement should once more be established in the group; thus combining a headquarters, from whence the pacification of the aborigines might be undertaken, with an abode of punishment for such mutineers and others whose offences had not merited the death penalty.
It was at this date that Dr F. J. Mouat, who has given an account of his visit in Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders, was sent, as head of a Commission, to examine the islands and select a suitable locality for the establishment of a penal settlement. The Commission spent about three weeks steaming about the coasts of the Archipelago, and finally decided on Old Harbour, to which they gave the name of Port Blair, in honour of its former resident.
A rather amusing incident occurred during the visit:—A nervous and imaginative member of an exploring party brought news of the proximity of a native village and a lurking body of aborigines. The doctor, without waiting for further information, or to be attacked, addressed his followers in a warlike speech, and gave the order to charge, which the company forthwith did with such vigour that two fiery spirits were knocked senseless by contact with burnt tree-stumps—a number of which the party had mistaken for natives. The expedition had, however, several serious conflicts with the aborigines, in which a few of the latter were killed.
On return of the Commission to Calcutta their advice was soon acted on, and the late General (then Captain) H. Man was sent to Port Blair to formally re-annex the Andamans and put matters in train, and following him a body of convicts arrived in charge of Dr J. P. Walker, who was appointed first Superintendent.
For some years the death-rate was excessive (averaging 18 per cent.), owing to the necessity of pushing forward clearing and building operations, and it was not until 1868, soon after the appointment of Colonel Man as Superintendent, that it fell to a more normal level (average for ten years, 2.7 per cent.).
The pacification of the natives, by means of Homes, a school, and visits paid to the tribes by the Station gunboat, went steadily on, until there now remain but two or three groups of Andamanese from whom any hostility is to be feared.
In 1872-3 the Andamans were formed in a Commissionership with the Nicobars, and a year later general attention was drawn to them by the death of Lord Mayo, Viceroy of India, at the hands of a convict.
The Andaman Islands are inhabited by people of pure Negrito blood, members of perhaps the most ancient race remaining on the earth, and standing closest to the primitive human type.
Geologically, the islands are connected with the opposite mainland, so that in remote times migration was probably possible; and we find in the Malay Peninsula, and in the Philippines, which were at one time connected with it, aborigines who—known by various names, such as Semang, Jakun, etc., and Aeta—are the nearest existing relatives of the Andamanese.
There is no reason to consider the Andamanese any other than the aborigines of the islands, for we know from their kitchen-middens, which are found throughout the group, that they occupied it in very remote times.
From the examination of fragments of pottery, arrowheads, and other stone implements discovered in the shell-mounds, it is now believed that the locality was settled some time during the Pleistocene period, and certainly not later than the Neolithic age.
"In the Andaman kitchen-middens have been found shells, pig-bones, pottery (referred to a stone age—at least to the Neolithic period—and almost identical with the fragments found in the Danish kitchen-middens), and stone implements. Every second stone picked up showed indications of being used in some way; some as hammers, others fastened to wood as rude hatchets, knives, etc.: a beautiful polished celt was found, indistinguishable from European or Indian celts of the Neolithic period, also a typical arrow-head—all of Tertiary sandstone."—Stoliczka.
The possession by the natives, in recent times, of implements and weapons manufactured from wood and shells only, is easily accounted for by their having found these equally suitable to their needs, and far easier to construct.
It would be impossible to find anywhere a race of purer descent than the Andamanese, for ever since they peopled the islands in the Stone Age, they have remained secluded from the outer world, and to this isolation is due the uniformity so marked in their physical and mental characteristics.
In stature they are far below the average height; but although they have been called dwarfs and pygmies, these words must not be understood to imply anything in the nature of a monstrosity. Their reputation for hideousness, like their poisoned arrows and cannibalism, has long been a fallacy, which, although widely popular, should now be exploded.
The average heights of Andamanese men and women, computed from a large series of measurements, are found to be 4 feet 10¾ inches and 4 feet 7¼ inches respectively, and their figures which are proportionately built, are very symmetrical and graceful. Although not to be described as muscular, they are of good development, the men being agile, yet sturdy, with broad chests and square shoulders.
The abdomens—although on the whole not to a greater extent than those of other savages—are sometimes protuberant, in the women more so than the men, and it is probably owing to this feature that they have been described as figureless, a statement by no means wholly correct.
In both sexes, the small of the back is very hollow and the buttocks prominent. The feet are rather large, and occasionally occurs a case of the great-toe being placed with relation to the others in an almost simian or thumb-like way. Hands are of moderate size and well shaped, with long thin fingers.
Viewed from a distance, the skin appears of a jetty colour, especially when shining from the fat with which it is often bedaubed: a close examination shows, however, that it is not absolutely black, although these people are amongst the darkest of mankind.[100] Soles, palms, and nails are pale pinkish-brown, and while the lips of some show a slight purplish tinge, those of the majority scarcely differ in tint from the skin of the face.
The hair, which is similar in colour to the skin, and lustreless, is woolly, and of what is known as "pepper-corn" type, for, when kept short, it assumes the form of little knobs with bare spaces between, giving to the head an appearance that has been rather aptly likened to that of an old worn-out shoe-brush. When long, the tufts take the form of a cone-shaped frizzly spiral. The body is glabrous, but there are traces of hair about the armpits and other parts, and adult males possess sometimes an excessively slight moustache, and about a dozen hairs on the tip of the chin.
The skull is mesocephalous, with an index of about 82; the forehead of good size, round and prominent; the face rather short, and often quadrilateral. The nose is somewhat broad, with rounded tip and nostrils, often short, and, when not straight, as is most common, is as frequently convex as concave. The eyes are large, horizontal, and placed widely apart, with black pupils and muddy yellow sclerotic; and the lips, which are well-formed and neither excessively prominent nor thick, are kept closed when at rest, and cover teeth strong though irregular and often stained from use of tobacco. The ears are of good shape, small, and lie close to the head.
Their speech is rapid and vivacious. Each tribe possesses a distinct dialect, traceable, however, to the same source.
"The Andamanese languages are one group, and have no affinities by which we might infer their connection with any other known group. They belong to the agglutinative stage of development, and are distinguished from other groups by the presence, in full development, of the principle of prefixed and affixed grammatical additions to the roots of words. Their form of speech is extremely intricate; for instance, the possessive pronouns have as many as sixteen possible variants according to the class of noun with which they are in agreement. There is also a distinct poetical dialect, and in their songs they subordinate to rhythm, not only the form of words, but even the grammatical construction of sentences."[101]
They have words for the numerals "one" and "two" only, but can count to ten by tapping the nose with the finger-tips of both hands, uttering for each in turn the word an-ká = "and this," until, when the last is reached, the expression árdúru implies "all."
In disposition they are childish, but bright and merry, though petulant, quick-tempered, and restless, and not capable of much perseverance. Great affection is lavished on children and the young; old or helpless are held in high consideration. Women are well treated, and not used as drudges or slaves, but are assisted by the men, who assume a fair share of the day's work.
In the school that at one time existed at Port Blair for the Andamanese, it was found, that, as with all savages, the children, when educated were as proficient up to a certain age as the children of civilised peoples, but that point reached, they possessed no capacity for imbibing further knowledge.
As the natives gain by education in intelligence and tractability, they become fat and indolent, while their morals undergo much deterioration through contact with the convicts. The clearance of the jungle has been prejudicial to their health, and excessive tobacco-smoking among both sexes, which has been unrestricted, has seriously undermined their already enfeebled constitutions.
They possess very little vital power, and readily succumb to diseases, suffering much from febrile disorders, which give rise to pulmonary complaints—the chief cause of mortality among them. Very few reach the age of fifty, and the average duration of life is little over twenty years. Of the lesser ailments, skin diseases are very common.
Measles, to which over 20 per cent. of the population fell victims in 1877, was followed by an outbreak of syphilis, both introduced by convicts. The latter disease has caused much injury, and its spread has, it is believed, been greatly accelerated by the custom prevailing of the women suckling each other's children.
The "sense of shame" is but little developed, and the natives pay no attention to their own nudity, although by nature they are modest. Of the various objects worn, those only coming under the heading of clothing are the aprons or leaves worn with the girdle by the women, and always carefully adjusted.
Previous to marriage, which is not permitted to those between whom any degree of consanguinity can be traced, unchastity is the rule with both sexes. Births out of wedlock, however, are considered discreditable, and marriage generally follows on a girl becoming enceinte, in which case there seems no objection on the part of the lover to become the husband.
Once married, conjugal fidelity until death is the rule, and bigamy, polygamy, and divorce are unknown.
Restrictions from various tabooed articles of food, which begin at puberty and often last for years, are brought to a conclusion after a long series of initiatory ceremonies undergone by both sexes.
When a death occurs, the corpse is buried with a method and ceremonies differing somewhat according as to whether it be adult or child;[102] and after some months, during which the encampment in which the death took place is deserted, the body is exhumed, and the bones cleaned and made into souvenirs, which are distributed to relatives and friends.
Numerous superstitions are extant among them, and there is credence in wizardry.
No form of worship is to be found; but there exists a belief in a spiritual being, called Púluga, the Creator; and in evil spirits, Érem-chaugala, the spirit of the woods; and Juruwinda, the spirit of the sea, the first of whom causes sickness and earthquakes, the latter cramp; both are demoniacal. There are also a host of minor devils, who are self-created; none of the demons are under the control of Púluga.[103]
They make no attempt at trading in the natural products of their islands, and manufacture nothing but the weapons, personal ornaments, implements, and utensils required for their own use. They have some knowledge of pottery, though not of the wheel, and make rude pots, which they ornament with patterns of wavy lines before baking.
No true musical instruments exist, but a rude sounding-board is constructed, on which they accompany songs by beating with the foot.[104]
The weapons used in hunting and fishing are bows and spears, and there are both hand and large seine nets for taking fish. For food there are pigs, musang, dugong, porpoise, fish, turtle and their eggs, molluscs, larvæ (a delicacy), fruit, honey, and roots. Food is cooked and eaten as hot as possible: of the production of fire they, at least in modern times, have no knowledge: this accounts for the great care taken in preserving fire at their camping places, and when travelling.
The coast people are extremely expert swimmers and divers, but the interior tribes naturally not so, as their mode of life is somewhat different.
The natives are now known to be divided into twelve tribes, if groups that in many cases number at present less than fifty individuals can be so called. Beyond their speech there is little otherwise to distinguish them from each other, except in the case of the Öngés and Jarawas, who differ somewhat from the rest, but are in many ways both alike.
The enmity that the Andamanese had ever shown to all strangers was by some believed to have been greatly due to the treatment they had received from early Chinese and Malay traders, or bêche-de-mer collectors; but, prior to 1858, extreme jealousy and distrust prevailed among adjacent tribes, and even amongst scattered communities of the same tribe, and it was not till 1879 that members of all the Andaman tribes (except Öngés and Jarawas) were able to meet on friendly terms at the Homes of the Settlement.
Friendly relations have lately been arrived at with most of the inhabitants of Little Andaman (i.e. the Öngés), but the Jarawas, who inhabit the North Sentinel, Rutland Island, and South Andaman, have proved to be quite irreconcilable, and their attitude often explains the total disappearance that sometimes follows escapes of the convicts.
They are generally feared by all their native neighbours and, with the boldness of ignorance, do not hesitate still to attack even superior numbers of Europeans, as an instance that occurred during the late census operations shows.
At Port Campbell a body of natives were seen who were pronounced to be Jarawas, and, as it was considered to be a suitable opportunity to attempt to establish friendly relations with them, the census party made for the shore, in a boat manned by Andamanese, taking with them a quantity of presents, a rifle, and some boards and cushions to serve as shields in case of hostilities, and an Andamanese woman, whose shrill cries it was hoped might prove to the savages pacific intentions. The crew, as usual, took their bows and arrows, but carefully concealed them, and, as the boat approached the shore, all waved handkerchiefs and large pieces of red cloth, much appreciated by the other Andamanese, while the woman loudly and unceasingly screamed friendly messages. But it was soon apparent that the Jarawas meant fighting, for they sent their women and children away to a distance, and then three of the men, armed with bows and arrows, and with threatening cries and gestures, waded out towards the boat, 100 yards distant, through the shallow water intervening. The three advanced in line, at intervals of about fifteen paces, and placed themselves so that the centre man could rake the boat and the others shoot into it from either side.
No arms were shown from the boat, but friendly signs persevered with, until the man on the right flank, who was the leader, when well within bow-shot, raised his weapon, and as it was seen that he was evidently in the act of discharging it, which would have been the signal for the others to follow suit, the rifle in the boat was fired at him, wounding him in the thigh. This caused him to spin round and make off towards the beach, followed by his supports. After running for a short distance, he fell, and, while his two companions pluckily picked him up and carried him into the jungle, some of the others, who had been looking on from the beach, yelled to the women, with the result that they were seen to return as hurriedly as possible. As the men on the beach evidently considered themselves in perfect safety, although only some 300 yards distant, a second bullet was fired into the sand near them, much to their astonishment and consternation, as they then and there fled into the adjacent jungle with shouts of alarm. The party in the boat thereupon returned to the launch and steamed out of the harbour.
It was suspected that these same men were responsible for the unprovoked murder of a petty officer of an oil-collecting gang, which had recently taken place near one of the Jarawa districts.
The population of the islands has been computed from time to time—from the 6000 at the period of the founding of the Settlement—in variously diminishing numbers down to the present day, when it is placed at about 1900.[105]
The case affords a striking example of the effect of contact between civilised and savage man, for only those tribes of the Andamanese that are still hostile or who have little or no intercourse with the Government Settlement, have preserved any respectable number of individuals in their ranks.
Of these, the Jarawas, although not distantly located from the Settlement, receive all advances with inveterate implacability, while the Öngés of Little Andaman, who were until 1884 almost totally unvisited, are further off, and enjoy an insular position.
These two tribes between them represent by estimation some 1250 of the total inhabitants of the islands. The numbers in the various other tribes are now very small, but possibly were never as large as those of the two mentioned.
Everywhere is noticeable an enormous disproportion between the numbers of adults and children—a feature, in view of the fewness of the former, that argues badly for a much longer continuance of the race. Concerning the fact, some of the natives say that it is not due to sickness, but that children are very seldom born; others state that the first, or first and second children are dead, and that the one present is the sole survivor. Undoubtedly, however, the infant mortality that exists is due to the presence of syphilis, which occurs in some of its most virulent forms amongst these people, and not to maternal neglect, as the mothers display the greatest affection for their children.
"The Andaman Penal System is the result of the constant attention of the Government which created it, and is the outcome of the measures of practical men, devised to meet the difficulties with which they have found themselves face to face, and reduced to order and rule by some of the keenest intellects that have worked in India for many years past. It is no paper constitution drawn up to suit any particular theories. There have always been the convicts in their thousands, and there have been the climate, and the necessity for treating the convicts in the way best calculated to benefit them, and for so employing them as to bring down their cost to the taxpayer to the lowest limits compatible with climatic conditions and beneficial treatment. Trusted agents of the Government have pondered these things on the spot in the light of an ever-increasing experience, and their ideas and suggestions have passed under the criticisms of highly experienced administrators, and have in the end produced the system which is now carried out.
"Repeatedly tinkered and patched and recast and remodelled though it has been, the Andaman System is still inchoate—still on its trial as it were. It could not well be otherwise, for in dealing with the criminal we are attempting to solve a mighty problem as old as criminality itself, and are plunged, perforce, into a controversy as contentious now as it was centuries upon centuries ago.
"From the best estimates to hand, we may take it that the permanent convict strength of the Settlement may be placed at about 12,000, of whom about 800 are women, and the rule is that only life convicts are sent from India, and life and long-term convicts from Burma. The people received, therefore, are the murderers who have for some reason escaped the death penalty, and the perpetrators of the more heinous offences against person and property—the men of brutal violence, the highwaymen, the robbers, the habitual thieves, and the receivers of stolen goods, the worst of the swindlers, forgers, cheats, coiners, and such like—in fact the most unrestrained temperaments of a continent. These considerations show the scale of the work, and the nature of the task.
"The convict comes to the Andamans a creature who, by his life or his acts, has shown himself to be so unfitted for human society that he has been cast out of it for life, or for a long term of years. Received thus, he is first subjected for six months to a most severe discipline—hard, rigid, uncompromising. He is taught what it is like to be forced to bend his uncontrolled nature to the iron yoke of a régime, not of hard toil, but of soul-crushing monotony. From the stern Cellular Jail he is next transferred to one of the associated jails, to the comparative blessing of hard labour, in company with others, but still under a strict discipline. He works and feeds with others in gangs, and there is a certain variety in the tasks demanded, but he still sleeps in his separate cell. Here he stays for a year and a half, and then for the next three years he is a slave, as the word is ordinarily understood, locked up with other slaves in barracks at night, but working in the open at any kind of task that the needs of the Settlement may require of him, according to his capacity—an unpaid, unrewarded labourer, but well fed, housed, clothed, and cared for, and always under watch and guard. During the following five years he is still a labouring convict, but the severity of his life is eased down a little for him. He is now eligible for the petty posts of supervision, and for the less irksome and less slave-like forms of labour, and he gets a little—a very little—allowance, to buy a few small luxuries, or to place in the Savings Bank against future necessities. Having thus served ten long probationary years, he is eligible, if he has any capacity, to take a ticket-of-leave and become what is locally known as a self-supporter.
"The convict is now in a sense 'free.' He earns his living in his own chosen way; he lives in a village, in his own house; he farms a little land; he keeps cattle; he can move about unwatched; he can send for his wife and children, or, the far more frequent course, he can marry a convict woman, who, under her own regulations, is eligible for marriage. He can thus become pater familias, with a little hoard of his own earning, and differing outwardly in no way from the ordinary villager or properly conducted member of human society. In reality, however, he differs so greatly, that he misses all those things that 'free' men prize so highly. He has no civil rights under the ordinary law, and all the affairs of his life are dealt with by the executive authority. He must live where he is told; and generally conduct his life as he is told; he may move about beyond his village and his fields by permission only; he cannot leave the Settlement; he may not be idle, under pain of a forced return to convict labour. In this state he remains ten or fifteen years, according to the crimes that have sent him here, until the happy day comes when the order for absolute release is placed in his hands and he goes free as other men.
"As in the other portions of his life in transportation, even in the condition of self-supporter the convict passes through two distinct stages. In the first stage he is assisted at the beginning with house, food, and tools, and then by exemption from rent, taxes, fees, and other cesses payable by the free towards the common benefit. In the second stage he receives no assistance whatever, but finds the whole of his means of livelihood, and is charged with every public payment which would be exacted from him in his own country.
"The women are dealt with on the same lines, but more gently, as becomes the gentler sex. For the first three years the convict woman works in the Female Jail as a mere slave, fed, housed, clothed, and cared for. Then for two years she is treated to the same easing down of severity as is granted to the men, and after a total of five years she is eligible for marriage and domestic service. Assuming that she marries, she joins her husband in his village, where she leads the ordinary life of an Indian woman, but subject to the same disabilities as her husband until she has completed fifteen years in transportation, when she may go free with him whithersoever he may go.
"Now through all this long education to useful citizenship there run continuous threads of practice in self-help and self-restraint, and of inducement to profit by the practice. The length of the convict's stay in the Cellular Jail depends entirely on his conduct in it, and so it remains throughout his career, up to the point of self-support. Efforts to behave well, and submission to control, mean promotion upwards from grade to grade in due course. Every serious lapse means the retarding of promotion, or actual retrogression. And when he has obtained his ticket-of-leave, it is to his own effort, his own thrift, his own steadiness, that he has solely to look for that little hoard which is to be so much to him when he goes back to his native land—no pauper, no mere jail-bird, no unwelcome burden on his relatives, but a self-respecting citizen, with a little capital of his own earning, for years habituated to provide for himself in an orderly way, and thoroughly broken to harness as it were.
"It does not require much imagination to contrast the difference in the personality of the same human being as he reaches and leaves Port Blair. He that arrived an outcast, void of restraint, and unfit for association with his kind on equal terms, goes forth a useful citizen, broken to restraint, and not only fitted for human society, but well used to submit to the conventions by which alone that society can be maintained. And men so reformed are not sent back to India by ones and twos, but by scores every year. Every one of the life convicts sent home is such a man. The incorrigible are kept till death, and the slow to learn are kept until they mend their ways, while those only that have good in them, and are capable of reform, are returned to the society they once disgraced.
"The difference between transportation to Port Blair and imprisonment in a jail lies in this very matter. While the Port Blair returned convict is a man fitted to, and habituated to, support himself, the prisoner released from a jail is not only a pauper but has became pauperised. That is, he has become unaccustomed to find for himself, and this disability has grown upon him with the length of his imprisonment. On this important ground alone, one cannot help hoping that some day it may be found feasible to extend the Andaman System to long-term prisoners from India.
"Besides the direct personal education that the Port Blair convict receives, he is taught various lessons of general importance in indirect ways. There is the value of justice, for instance. For though his life is absolutely controlled by executive officers, everything that happens to him is the result of a quasi-judicial procedure. No punishment can be inflicted without a proceeding, without registration, or without record of the evidence on which it is awarded. There is a regular course of appeal, and a further untrammelled appeal to the Head of the Administration himself. Thus, though the punishments in such a place as Port Blair must on occasion assume a form of deterrent severity, there is as much security of justice in award as elsewhere.
"Then there is the system of local marriage. This is no concubinage, no temporary or irregular alliance. Every inquiry is made and every step is taken that is necessary to render convict marriages legal, according to the customary personal law of the contracting parties. Long is the waiting in many cases between proposal and completion, and many are the disappointments when the conditions are found to bar completion. Once married, the husband and wife are made to clearly realise their condition, and must depart together or not at all.
"The children, of course, are a very serious question, but the best is done for them,—their health is so well cared for, that in Port Blair, probably alone in all the East, it is the rule to successfully rear the whole of a young family; primary education is here compulsory, again probably alone in all the East; and technical training is free to all. Their inheritance of temperament and their early associations are the points of anxiety regarding them, but these matters may be fairly said to be beyond control.[106]
"The Savings Bank has already been mentioned as a factor in the education of the convict. How great has been the effect of this beneficent institution will be seen from the fact that it was started twenty-seven years ago with 54 accounts, and is now, and has for years past been, the largest local bank of the kind in India. It has now over 2300 open convict accounts, and has had 12,000 accounts opened during its existence. This means, that for years, more than one fourth of the whole body of the convicts have kept their savings in it, thus showing how well they have taken to heart the lessons of thrift and of faith in the honesty of the Government.
"But far be it from concealing the fact that there is a seamy side to life in Port Blair. It could not be otherwise; and it would be easy enough to paint a lurid picture of its inhabitants,—easy enough to preach a scathing condemnation of the envy, hatred, and malice, the uncharitableness, the evil-speaking, lying and slandering, the murder and the cruel death, of the amazing immorality, the callous depravity, the downright unabashed wickedness, that are so constantly forced upon the view. But such is not to the purpose. Human faults are easily seen and easily denounced, for such things lie on the surface. The difficult thing always is to perceive aright the good that there is in bad men, and bring that out, and that is the object that the Government is aiming at in the system just explained.
"Any one observing the work of the English in the East may possibly be struck with the idea that the reason for the acknowledged capacity of the race for colonial enterprise and the maintenance of empire is the ability and the willingness of the average Englishman to put his hand to any kind of work that may come his way, without any special training, from framing suitable laws and regulations and creating suitable organisations to making roads and ditches, building houses, and clearing land and ploughing it. Here in Port Blair, the officers entrusted with the creation, organisation, and maintenance of the Penal Settlement, have, without any special training for the work, and without any special guidance and teaching, managed with the worst possible material to work upon—life and long-term convicts from every part of India and Burma—to create in little more than forty years, upon primeval forest and swamp, situated in an enervating, and until mastered, a deadly climate, a community supporting itself in regard to many of its complicated wants.
"They began with the dense forests, the fetid swamps, and the pestilential coral banks of tropical islands, and have made out of them many square miles of grass and arable lands, supporting over fifty villages besides convict stations. Miles upon miles of swamp have been reclaimed, the coral banks have been controlled, and a place with regard to which the words climate and pestilence were almost synonymous has been turned into one favourably spoken of as to its healthiness. The Settlement now grows its own vegetables, tea,[107] coffee, cocoa, tapioca, and arrowroot; some of its ordinary food grains, and most of its fodder. It supplies itself with the greater part of its animal food, and all its fuel and salt. In other lines of work, it makes its own boats, and provides from its own resources the bulk of the materials for its buildings, which are constructed and erected locally. Amongst the materials produced are all the timber, stone, bricks, lime, and mortar, and most of the iron and metal work are made up there from raw material. In the matter of convict clothing, all that is necessary to be purchased elsewhere are the roughest of cotton hanks and wool in the first and rawest condition, every other operation being performed on the spot. It provides much of its own leather.
"In achieving the results, the officers have had first to learn for themselves as best they could how to turn out the work to hand, and then to teach what they had learnt to the most unpromising pupils that can be imagined,—only about 3 per cent. of the convicts sent there having been previously employed on the work required of them in Port Blair. And they have been hampered all along by the necessities of convict discipline, by the constant release of their men, and their punishment for misconduct. It is under such conditions that the Corps of Artificers and the other convicts have had to be utilised. Nevertheless, the roads and drains, the buildings and boats, the embankments and reservoirs, are as good and durable as are the same class of structures elsewhere. The manufactures are sufficient for their purpose, and there are among the taught those who are now skilled in the use of many kinds of machinery. Cultivation is generally fair, and some of it very good. The general sanitation—but here there are peculiar advantages—is literally second to none."[108]
First of all the industries of the Andamans is that of timber, and to accelerate and increase it a Steam Tramway has been instituted, and there are now some 14 miles of line connecting the forests with the shores of Port Blair. As a further adjunct, Steam Saw-mills were erected in 1896, and a Forest Department, that employs 500 to 600 men daily under its own officers, not only supplies the Settlement with the whole of its requirements in timber from the local forests, but also exports timber and forest produce to various places in India and Europe. Of these latter exports, rattans and gurjan oil are the chief; other natural products of the islands are trepang—bêche-de-mer—tortoiseshell and edible birds' nests, but they are only collected in small quantities.
The principal cultivations in which convicts and ex-convicts are engaged are paddy, sugar-cane, Indian corn, and turmeric; coconuts have during the past thirty-five years been extensively planted, and besides the agricultural products previously mentioned, vegetables and fruits of various kinds are grown.
The larger industries in which the penal community is engaged in have already been alluded to, but there are many minor employments, the products from which also go towards making the Settlement self-supporting. Amongst these are to be found the manufacture of all kinds of furniture, cane chairs, baskets, many varieties of bamboo-work and ornamental wood-carving, woven articles, from serviettes to saddle-girths and blankets, pottery, rope and mats, silver, tin, brass and iron work, shoemaking, rickshaw and cart building, besides the production of such materials as lime, bricks, and tiles.
Port Blair is in communication three, and often four times a month, with Calcutta, Madras, and Rangoon, by the vessels of the Asiatic Steam Navigation Company. The distances between the Settlement and the ports named are 796, 780, and 387 miles respectively.