Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1921.djvu/215

 ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR ISLANDS 163

through Sikkim. Imports into Sikkim from, and exports from Sikkim to, India :—

- ,i 915 " 14 x 1915-16 1915-17 1917-18 1918-19

£ £

Imports from India 108,605 110,0(7

Exports to India 201,385 181,370

The chief imports into Sikkim are cotton piece goods, oils, provisions, salt, manufactured silk, sugar, tea, tobacco, and rice ; the chief exports from Sikkim food grains and vegetables, hides and skins, raw wool, and timber.

Political Officer.— C. A. Bell, Esq., C.M.G., CLE. References.

A collection of Treaties, Engagements, and Sanads relating to India and neighbouring countries. By C. C. AitcMson. Volume II. Calcutta.

Routes in .Sikkim, compiled in the Intelligence Branch of the Qoartermaater-Gaaeral > Department in India. Br Captain W. P. O'Connor. Calcutta, 1890.

Donaldson ( Florence). Lepcha Land, or Six Weeks in the Sikhim Himalayas. London, 1900.

Edgar (Sir John), Report on a Visit to Sikkim in 1873. Calcutta, 1874.

FrtthJUld (D. W.), Round Kangchenjunga. London, 1903.

Louis (J. O. H.), At the Gates of Tibet. London.

Strakan (Lieut. -Col.), Report on Explorations in Sikkim. Dehra Dun, 1999.

Waddell, Among the Himalayas.

White (J. Claude), Sikkim and Bhutan London, 1909.

ANDAMAN AND NIC0BAB ISLANDS.

The Andaman Islands lie in the Bay of Bengal, 590 miles from the mouth of the Hugli, 120 miles from Cape Negrais in Burma, the nearest point ou the mainland. Five large islands closely grouped together are called the Great Andaman, and to the south is the island of Little Andaman. There are some 200 islets, the two principal groups being the Andaman Archipelago and the Labyrinth Islands. The total area is 2,260 square miles. The Great Andaman group is about 219 miles long and, at the widest, 32 miles broad. The group, densely wooded, contains many valuable trees, the best known oi which is the po.duuk cr Andaman redwood (Pterocarpus dalbtrgioides). The islands are hilly, the highest point, Saddle Peak, being 2,402 feet, and Mount Harriet, 1,196 feet in height. The islands

Fs a number of harbours and safe anchorages, notably, Port Blair, ort Cornwallis, and Stewart Sound, the last being most favourably situated for forest trade. The climate is tropical, the rainfall irregular and often excessive. The aborigines, 1,817 (628 males and 689 females) in 1911, (against 1,882 in 1901), live in small groupso?er the islands ; they are savages of a low Negrito type. The total population ol the Andaman Islands in 1920 was 16,316 (14,297 males and 2,019 females). In 1318-19 the forest sales, the result of convict and free labour, amounted to 11,84,364 rupees. Tea, the coconut, rubber {Herea brasilicnsis), Manila hemp {Atitsa textilis), and Bahamas aloe {Agave sisalana) are successfully cultivated. In 1920 there were 10,753 head of cattle. Wireless telegraphy with Burma was established in 1904. A mail steamer connects Port Blair with Calcutta, Rangoon, and Madras. The islands are used by the Government of India as a penal settle- iment for life and long-term convicts. The settlement possesses about 22,468 lacres of cleared land and 83 square miles of reserved forest. There were, in 1920, 15,553 convicts (including 404 women) in the place, of whom

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