1699, II. 122;
H. Gen. des Voyages, XII. 310; Linschoten, Routier, p. 30; De
Barros, Dec. III. liv. iii. cap. 3; J.A.S.B. VI. 807; Astley, I.
238.)
The two islands (or rather groups of islands) Necuveran and Angamanain
are the Nicobar and Andaman groups. A nearer trace of the form Necuveran,
or Necouran as it stands in some MSS., is perhaps preserved in
Nancouri, the existing name of one of the islands. They are perhaps the
Nalo-kilo-cheu (Narikela-dvipa) or Coco-nut Islands of which Hiuen
Tsang speaks as existing some thousand li to the south of Ceylon. The
men, he had heard, were but 3 feet high, and had the beaks of birds. They
had no cultivation and lived on coco-nuts. The islands are also believed
to be the Lanja balus or Lankha balus of the old Arab navigators:
"These Islands support a numerous population. Both men and women go naked,
only the women wear a girdle of the leaves of trees. When a ship passes
near, the men come out in boats of various sizes and barter ambergris and
coco-nuts for iron," a description which has applied accurately for many
centuries. [Ibn Khordadhbeh says (De Goeje's transl., p. 45) that the
inhabitants of Nicobar (Alankabalous), an island situated at ten or
fifteen days from Serendib, are naked; they live on bananas, fresh fish,
and coco-nuts; the precious metal is iron in their country; they frequent
foreign merchants.
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