- Here Marco speaks of the remarkable population of the Andaman
Islands - Oriental negroes in the lowest state of barbarism - who have
remained in their isolated and degraded condition, so near the shores of
great civilised countries, for so many ages. "Rice and milk" they have
not, and their fruits are only wild ones.
[From the Sing-ch'a Sheng-lan quoted by Professor Schlegel (Geog.
Notes, I. p. 8) we learn that these islanders have neither "rice or corn,
but only descend into the sea and catch fish and shrimps in their nets;
they also plant Banians and Cocoa-trees for their food." - H.C.]
I imagine our traveller's form Angamanain to be an Arabic (oblique)
dual - "The two ANDAMANS," viz. The Great and The Little, the former being
in truth a chain of three islands, but so close and nearly continuous as
to form apparently one, and to be named as such.
[Illustration: The Borus. (From a Manuscript.)]
[Professor Schlegel writes (Geog. Notes. I. p. 12): "This etymology is
to be rejected because the old Chinese transcription gives So - (or
Sun) daman.... The Pien-i-tien (ch. 107, I. fol. 30) gives a
description of Andaman, here called An-to-man kwoh, quoted from the
San-tsai Tu-hwui." - H.C.]
The origin of the name seems to be unknown.
