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MAY, 1897.]
SELUNGS OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO.
119
EXTRACTS FROM OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE SELUNGS OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO.
BY R. C. TEMPLE. (Continued from p. 91.) V.
From Captain E. M. Ryan, Officiating Deputy Commissioner, Mergui, to Major 4. Fytche, Officiating Commissioner, Tenasserim and Martaban Provinces, Moulmein dated the 11th August 1857.
Dr. Helfer has given the following graphical Sketch of the Salones:
"Spent this day among the Salones. At my first arrival in the night a general terror spread over the defenceless community, they not knowing whether friend or foe was approaching. Suspecting an incursion of Malays from the south, the women and children had fled into the interior, and their best property, sea-slugs, and rice had been buried in all hurry in the jungle. Finding that a white-man was come among them (it was in these parts for the first time), their apprehensions changed into joy, and the whole community came in the morning to where I had landed to welcome me.
"There were about 70 men, women, and children altogether; they had encamped on the sandy sea-beach; each family had erected a little raised shed covered with palm-leaves, where all the members huddled together in the night. There they sat, a dirty, miserable-looking congregation, the women occupied in making mats of a peculiar description from sea-weed (which are sold at Mergui and Moulmein and much sought after), the children screaming apparently out of fear at the strange apparition, dogs, cats, and cocks all joining to make the full chorus. Everything had the appearance of confusion, and even the animals seemed to be aware that my arrival among them was an extraordinary event. Some of these sheds appeared like butchers' stalls. Large pieces of turtle, rendering the atmosphere pestilential, were everywhere drying in the sun. It is their main food. Shell-fish were seen extracted from their shells, and wild roots of a species of Diascorea, as well as the fatal Cycas circinalis, were prepared for cooking.
"On the beach lay 20 or 30 boats, well built and light, like ant-shells swimming on the surface, the bottom built of a solid trank, the sides consisting of the slender trunks of the palm strongly united and corked with palm hemp. These boats, not longer than 20 feet, are the true home of the Salones: to it he entrusts his life and property; in it he wanders during his lifetime from island to island; a true ichthyophagist, to whom the Earth has no charm, and whom he neglects so much that he does not even entrust to her a single grain of rice. But even as fishermen these people are to be considered yet in their infancy. They have even no nets, the trident is their only weapon, with which they spear sharks and other fish as well as turtle; all the rest they want is done with the da or with the hand; they know no other instrument.
"In their exterior they are well built, apparently healthy, darker than the Burmese; part of them approach the Malay type, part of them the Ethiopian; the curly hair of some of them especially speaks in favour of Negro origin. Might they have had formerly communication with the Andamanese ?
"I spent the whole day in conversation with them through the medium of their headman, who understands Burmese; besides him and two others, the rest were unacquainted with it. Some spoke, besides their own idiom, Siamese; some Malay. They behaved with remarkable civility and decorum. They related that their children are exposed to sickness and death from three to six years; those who survive that period are considered safe. I think they die,
