Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/369

MOZAMBIQUE ISLAND. 295 immunity was pun^huscd at the cost of keeping far from the highways of com- merce, ami excluding the Arab traders from all their settlements. Now, however, the buyers of copal and caoutchouc have gained access to their hitherto secluded retreats, and they have thus been gradually drawn within the sphere of commercial activity centred in the Portuguese seaports. The Mavihas are rtniarkable for their symmetrical figures and graceful car- riage, but they disfigure themselves by incisions, while not only the women but even the men wear the pelele in the upper lip, giving to the mouth somewhat the appearance of a nozzle. This lip-ring is prepared by the husband himself for his wife, and the ornament thus becomes a symbol of love and fidelity, like the wedding-ring worn by married people in civilised countries. When the wife dies the husband religiously preserves her pelele, never forgetting to bring it with him when he visits her grave and pours libations to her memory. O'Neill is of opinion that the Mavihas belong to the same race as the Makondes, who dwell to the north of the Rovuma. They have the same customs, and the people of the coast apply the same collective name to both groups. As amongst the Makondes, the Maviha women enjoy the privilege of choosing their husbands. Topography. The seaports where European and Asiatic dealers have settled for the purpose of trading with the natives of the interior are not numerous on the Mozambique coast ; nor have any of them acquired the proportions of a large city. They are, however, supplemented by the missionary stations founded in the regions remote from the seaboard, for these stations have become so many little European colonies, where the indigenous populations are brought into contact with a new and superior civilisation. North-west of Quelimane, the first frequented port is that of Angonhn, formerly a busy centre of the slave-trade. But the point selected for connecting the submarine cable and for the regular mail service is the famous island of Mozam- bique, which was occupied by the Portuguese at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a hundred years later made the capital of all their East African possessions. This island was already a great Arab market, trading with the East Indies, when Yasco de Guma discovered it in 1498. The Portuguese had merely to fortify the place in order to secure a station of vital importance on the highway between Lisbon and Goa. Mozambique Island, a coralline rock about two miles long and a few hundred yards broad, partly closes the entrance of the spacious Mossoril Bay, a perfectly sheltered haven from 25 to 60 feet deep, where vessels frequenting these waters find a safe anchorage during the prevalence of the south-east monsoons. But on the east side of the island there is also developed another haven well protected from the surf by some coral reefs, low islands, and Cape Cabeceira, a prominent headland lying to the north-east of Mozambique, and connected with the mainland by a wooded peninsiih). The town, where no traces are any longer seen of the