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CHAPTER V

ISLANDS

In the seas surrounding Burma are innumerable islands, for the most part of no great economic importance. Some will be mentioned in the short account of lighthouses.

At the mouth of the Kaladan, off the coast of Arakan, are the Baronga Islands where oil wells have been worked for many years with only moderate success. Further south, forming great part of Kyaukpyu, are the large inhabited islands of Ramree (800-900 square miles) and Cheduba (220 square miles) and many smaller islands. Off the coast of Sandoway is Foul Island. At the mouth of the Bassein river are Haing-gyi or Negrais and Diamond Island where countless turtles lay myriads of eggs.

For five months of the year, Diamond Island is swept by cyclones, blinded with prodigious rain; its little houses are tethered with thick steel ropes against the assaults of tremendous gales. But at the right season and in its own way Diamond Island is perfection. During seven dry months its climate is simply that of the Island Valley of Avilion. It is girded with splendid sands, and in certain places low rocks project from the edge of the sand into the sea.... From the landing place a path leads up a low cliff and runs across the island through parklike lawns and woods. Barking deer sport in its charming glades.... The grass is always green and the water brooks fail not[1].

The serpent of this Eden is the deadly sea-snake of the encircling waters.

Attached to the Hanthawaddy district for administrative purposes are the Cocos, two islands of no great size or importance, lying nearly due north of the Andamans[2]. ​The sea bordering on Tavoy is studded with small islets, the most noticeable, the three groups of Moscos, uninhabited save by builders of edible birds' nests; the largest, Tavoy Island. All along the coast of Mergui are the multitudinous clusters of the famous Mergui Archipelago hardly rivalled for picturesque beauty. Of these islands, 804 in number, the largest and almost the only one inhabited by civilized people is King Island (170 square miles) whereon is a rubber plantation. To enumerate others would be merely to give a catalogue of names. Many of these islands are the home of a strange people known as Salon or Mawken, by some called sea-gypsies[3]. Here are pearl fisheries, mentioned elsewhere.

  1. ↑ Marjorie Laurie.
  2. ↑ The Andamans and Nicobars are not part of Burma.
  3. ↑ A full account of these people is given in The Sea Gypsies of Malaya by Walter Grainge White, F.R.G.S.
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