Agathou daimonos]. It
seems probable enough that this was [Greek: Agdaimouos Naesos], or the
like, "The Angdaman Island," misunderstood. His next group of Islands is
the Barussae, which seems again to be the Lankha Balus of the oldest
Arab navigators, since these are certainly the Nicobars. [The name first
appears distinctly in the Arab narratives of the 9th century. (Yule,
Hobson-Jobson.)]
The description of the natives of the Andaman Islands in the early Arab
Relations has been often quoted, but it is too like our traveller's
account to be omitted: "The inhabitants of these islands eat men alive.
They are black with woolly hair, and in their eyes and countenance there
is something quite frightful.... They go naked, and have no boats. If they
had they would devour all who passed near them. Sometimes ships that are
wind-bound, and have exhausted their provision of water, touch here and
apply to the natives for it; in such cases the crew sometimes fall into
the hands of the latter, and most of them are massacred" (p. 9).
[Illustration: The Cynocephali. (From the Livre des Merveilles.)]
The traditional charge of cannibalism against these people used to be very
persistent, though it is generally rejected since our settlement upon the
group in 1858.
