a cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean, lying between N. Lat. 6° 40. and 9° 20., and E. Long. 93° 3. and 94° 13., and inhabited by Malays. A settlement was formed here by the Danes in 1756, but abandoned by them in 1768. In the year 1840 the whaler Pilot, of London, was seized by pirates infesting the Nicobars. At this period the sovereignty of these islands was claimed by the Danes. Evidence subsequently obtained, left little room for doubt, that, in several instances, the crews of British vessels had been murdered, and the vessels scuttled and sunk by the islanders. Measures were taken to give notoriety to these circumstances. In 1848 the Danish government came to the determination to abandon all claim to sovereignty over the Nicobars. Some years later, certain residents of Chittagong made a representation to the Indian government regarding two brigs which had sailed for the Nicobars in the year 1852. Neither of them had since been heard of, and a strong presumption existed that both had been cut off by savages. Captain Dicey, of the steamer Tenasserim, was therefore despatched to the Nicobars for the purpose of inquiring into the fate of the missing vessels; and the report of this officer, the official authorities observes, "leaves no doubt that two vessels, one of them English, have recently been destroyed, and their crews murdered by the inhabitants of the Nicobars; and there seems too much reason to fear that these atrocities have been preceded by many similar outrages." These and the adjacent islands, the Andamans, would, it has been suggested, answer admirably for a convict settlement.