Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/573

THE COMORO ISLANDS. 469 The Comoro or Korar group, a nume also at one time extended to Madagascar, has been known to the Arab navigators at least since the tenth century, and was also formerly visited by the Persians of Shiraz, who traded with Magdoshu and Kiloa on the African seaboard. During the eailydaysof Portuguese enterprise, mariners from Lisbon called at Great Comoro. But the first permanent settlers, mostly runaway slaves, came from Madagascar and East Africa, and even from Arabia, forming in the archipelago a mongrel race, which presents all the transi- tions from the almost pure Semite to the Malagasy and Bantu types. A few Banyan traders have also been attracted from Bombay ; but the bulk of the population, collectively called Ant'Aloch, represents a mixture of diverse African, Arab and Malagasy elements. The Ant'Aloch islanders are mostly tall, with a yellowish complexion, thick but not pouting lips, high but narrow brow. The hair, naturally crisp or kinky, is usually shaven in the Mussulman fashion ; the women also blacken their teeth with betel-chewing, while many are tattooed and wear a metal button or flower on the nostril in the Hindu style. At Mayotte, where the Malagasy element prevails, the people are of darker colour, but in the other islands of more Semitic appearance. The natives of Great Comoro are an exceptionally tall and stalwart race, and travellers speak with admiration of these men, whose robust constitution and freedom from disease are attributed both to their cleanly habits and to the salubrity of the climate. The Ant'Aloches and dominant Mahorri, or "Moors," are all Mohammedans of mixed descent, who endeavour in all things to conform to the usages and institutions of their Arab teachers. The Sultans draw up their decrees in Arbbic although the current speech is a variety of Ki-Swaheli mixed with a few Malagasy and numerous South African elements, introduced by Makua and other slaves from the mainland. These slaves still constitute nearly half of the population, although the Sultans have undertaken to abolish slavery. The French island of Mayotte (Maute) is three times smaller, but commercially more important, than Great Comoro. The roadstead, protected eastwards by the islet of Pamanzi, is very deep and spacious enough to accommodate whole fleets. But although it enjoys the advantage of free trade, Mayotte is too small to attract much traftic, and has failed to realise the hopes of those who expected it would become a great mart for Madagascar and the mainland. Besides cocoanuts it yields coffee, cotton and especially vanilla, and the planters, chiefly from Mauritius and Reunion, have recently taken to the cultivation of sugar and distillation of rum. The administration, at first established at Zaudzi, at the western extremity of Pamanzi, has been transferred to Mamutzu or Shoa, facing it on the east side of Mayotte. But the largest place in the island is JifSnpere, close to the hill of like name over a mile farther inland. Since the French annexation the popiUation of Mayotte has increased fourfold, having risen from three thousand three hundred in 1843 to about fourteen thousand in 1888. Anjuan {Johanna, Nsuani) has always enjoyed a considerable trade as an intermediate station between the Cape and India. The British cruisers employed in the suppression of the slave trade maintained a provision and coaling station