Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/413

ISLAND OF ZANZIBAB. 829 rather to expand, as we see in such instances as Africa, originally a small part of Mauritania ; Asia, at first a little district on the Ionian coast ; Borneo [Brunei), a town on the west side of the great island to which it now gives its name. ^Uthough resting on a coralline foundation, the island of Zanzibar is not exclusively composed of these organic remains. It also presents a few hills formed of a reddish and ferruginous clay, which rise in gentle undulations above the surrounding plain, and which in many places are furrowed by the running waters and carved into columnar formations of surprising regularity. In the southern part of the island the highest eminences do not exceed 450 feet, but on the north-west coast a chain of hills running parallel with the shore attains an eIev((tion of 1,000 feet, culminating point of the island. Nearly the whole surface of Zanzibar has been brought under cultivation; hence the population is relatively dense, considerably exceeding two hundred thousand souls in a superBcial area of not more than 650 square miles. The island is thus proportionately more thickly peopled than France, and during the north-east monsoon the settled population is said to be increased by over thirty thousand strangers from Arabia, the Comoro Islands, India, and Persia. Flora and Fauna of Zanzibar. The insular flora is the same as that of the adjacent mainland. A few orchids and one or two ferns appear to be the only indigenous species, or at least the only varieties that have not yet been discovered on the opposite seaboard. The fertile soil of the island yields in abundance all the fruits of tropical lands, American species here intermingling with those of the eastern archipelago. Two crops of corn are raised in the twelvemonth, and four of manioc, which forms the staple food of the inhabitants. Of palms the prevailing species is the cocoonut, which covers extensive tracts and supplies the natives with food, drink, timber, cordage, oil for exportation and for making soap. The date-palm also grows in the island, but its fruit is inferior to that obtained from the oases of the Sahara. Magnificent mangoes, whose fruit has a flavour of strawberries and cream, are extensively cultivated, while the gunva, the orange, the lime, and bread-tree interlace their foliage with the mangosteen and durian {ditrio zibethinus^, introduced from the Sunda Islands, whose fruit, after giving a smack of onions and mitey chet se, is said to be alto- gether unrivalled for its exquisite flavour. Zanzibar also produces the spices of India and Malaysia — cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and, especially since 1830, cloves, the yearly crop of which already exceeds many millions of pounds weight. The tremendous hurricane of 1872 almost entirely destroyed the clove and cocoanut plantations, uprooting four- fifths of these plants, and for a time ruining the island. Being a natural dependency of the African mainland, of which it probably formed part at some former geological epoch, Zanzibar has an exclusively continental fauna. But the animals are not numerous, most of the species having either become extinct in this confined space, or been exterminated by the peasantry.