Indian Antiquary Vol 61

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 170

156
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[AUGUST, 1932
except when recommended for a change by the medical officer, they were, during a great portion of the period under review, required to pass about three years before they became eligible for transfer. This was not so great a hardship as it might otherwise appear, for further experience had proved that the first year of residence was usually the most trying and that, owing to this circumstance more work could be accomplished by those who had thus, in a measure, become acclimatised than by new arrivals. The practice, therefore, proved beneficial in enabling greater progress to be made.
Indeed, it often occurred that on becoming eligible for transfer to Port Blair, some of the convicts would prefer to remain at the Nicobars, so that it was found in February 1888 that of the 293 prisoners then at Nancowry, 88 had passed more than three years, and of that number 20 had been there from five to fifteen years without a change.
Although the facility of transferring the most sickly cases to Port Blair for change and treatment, and obtaining selected men in their place, was freely availed of, the hospital returns were, for most years, very high, and if the deaths and sick-rate at the Andamans of those recently transferred from the Nicobars had been also taken into account, the statistics would have proclaimed more clearly than they did the actual amount of mischief caused by the malarious climate.
Although, in spite of the disastrous experiences of the Moravian Missionaries a hundred years ago, the Nicobar fever can probably not be regarded as of so deadly a character as that of the pestilential Niger, it is curious to note that our experience of the former corresponded in one respect with that recorded of the latter, viz., that "the fever usually sets in 16 days after exposure to the malaria, and that one attack, instead of acclimatising the patient, seems to render him all the more liable to a second."
That a decided improvement had taken place in the sanitary condition of the settlement during the last few years there can be no doubt, and that it could have been further improved and the site itself rendered fairly healthy by completing the reclamations of the swamps, jhils, and foreshore, and removing all exposed coral reefs within a reasonable radius of the station, seems equally certain; but in order to accomplish such a task, more labour than was available at Camorta would have had to be freely bestowed for two or more years, during which time a high percentage of sick would have had to be counted on.
WORKS.-The principal works on which the convicts were employed from first to last were as follows:
(a) The construction of buildings, tanks,
with out-houses
5 barracks 4 bungalows
7 smaller quarters and out-houses
1 Commissariat godown
1 Magazine
12 brick wells
1. .. tank
2 tanks
Numerous cattle and work-sheds, etc.
and wells (as per margin), metalled roads, drains (brick, surface and sub-surface), seawalls, and a jetty (500 feet long).
The two last-named works proved very beneficial in reclaiming a large portion of the unhealthy area occupied by the foreshore, whereby, among other advantages, a site for numerous huts required for the accommodation of free cocoanut-traders was provided.
As regards material, in the absence of stone suitable for building purpose in situ, much use was made of the fine blocks of coral which were so easily obtainable.
It was found easy to shape these by means of old blunt axes in slabs and blocks of suitable size. That they served our purpose very satisfactorily was evident from the substantial character of the work in the reservoir, wells, sea-walling and jetty. As the insanitary effects of exposed live coral are well known, the quarrying of