Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/578

 474 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. the local consumption. Goats also thrive, and are almost the only domestic animals. The exports are mainly cocoanuts under the form of coprah, and of late years vanilla, besides tortoise-shell and cloves. This trade, which has lately sufiFered from a disease of the cocoanut palm, is chiefly centred in Port Victoria, as the English have renamed Mahi, on the north side of Mahe Island, so designated from the Governor of the He de France, who took possession of the Seychelles in 174.'J. Mahe is a port of call for whalers and for the steamers plying between Suez and Mauritius. The Seychelles are administered from Mauritius, although distant over 1,000 miles from that colony. If they were ever geographically connected, the inter- vening lands or islands probably described a great curve south-east of the Seychelles, where the soundings have revealed extensive submarine banks, such as Saya de ^lalha, Nazareth and others. Towards the southern extremity of Nazareth occur the islets of Cargados or Garoyoa, called also St. Brendan, like the mysterious land associated with the legend of the Irish saint of that name. The Cargados have a total area of 13 square miles, and are covered with cocoanuts belonging to the people of Mauritius. About a dozen hands are employed in collecting the nuts, preparing the coprah, and curing fish. Within the vast semicircle of deep waters enclosed by Madagascar, the Amirantes, the Seychelles, Nazareth, and the Mascarenhas, there also occur a few islets representing the peaks of mountains rising to the surface from depths of 2,000 fathoms. South of the Seychelles, and beyond Plate Inland, a mere clump of palms, follow at a distance of 420 miles the Gakgas {Galega or Coi'tiri/), which from their extensive cocoanut forests take the title of the " oil islands" in common with the Cargados group. In Great Galega, 12 square miles in extent, a little community of over two hundred Mauritian Creoles is occupied in the preparation of the oil from the cocoanut plantations. Tromelin Island, about midway between the Cargados and St. Mary of Madagascar, is a mere sandbank rising 15 or -16 feet above the surface. On this bank, not more than 100 acres in extent, a slaver was wrecked in 1761, and fifteen years afterwards a vessel, somewhat tardily sent to the rescue, found seven negresses still alive.