Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1913.djvu/311

 SEYCHELLES 189

(phormium) iudustry is now established, and a Government mill commenced operations in December, 1907. Large areas of land are now under flax. A lace-making industry has been started and is making very satisfactory progress. The total and British tonnage entered (the same tonnage also cleared) : —

Tonnage

1907

160,655 1 160,655

1908 • 1909 1910

1911

Total. British.

i 156,482 159,766 172,358 ' 156,482 158,932 171,213

187,441 1 184,735

1 The total tonnage cleared was 181,697, due to destruction at port of British SS. Papanni by fire.

The Post Office traffic from St. Helena in 1911, 48,375 letters and post- cards, besides books, papers and parcels. The Eastern Telegraph Company's cable connects St. Helena with Cape Town and with St. Vincent. There are telephone lines, with 40 miles of wire.

St. Helena is an Admiralty coaling station. About two of the three cruisers of which the Cape of Good Hope Squadron consists visit St. Helena every year.

Tristan da Cunha, a small group of islands in the Atlantic, half-way be- tween the Cape and S. America, in 37° 6' S. lat. 12° 1' W. Ion. Until the death of Napoleon I. they were occupied by a garrison. Besides Tristan da Cunha and Cough's Island, there are Inaccessible and Nightingale Islands, the former two and the latter one mile long, and a number of rocks. The population consists mainly of the families of shipwrecked sailors and wives from St. Helena, and numbered 75 (36 males and 39 females) in February, 1903. There is no form of government among them. All can read and about half can write. On the island potatoes grow well, but grain crops are destroyed by rats. Apple and peach trees are productive. There are over 600 head of cattle, 700 sheep, a few pigs, and 100 donkeys. Fish are plentiful in the waters. An annual visit has long been paid to the island by one of His Majesty's ships, but this seems likely to be discontinued.

References.

Colonial Report. Annual. London.

Report (written in 1^84) upon the Present Position and Prospects of the Agricultural Resources of St. Helena. By D. Morris. Reprinted in 1906. London.

Brooke's History of St. Helena.

Barrow (K, M.), Three Years in Tristan da Cunha. London, 1911.

£iZi« (A. B). West African Islands. 8. London, 1885.

Jackso7i(E. L.), St. Helena : The Historic Island. London, 1903.

Morris (I).), Agricultural Resources of St. Helena.

Melliss's Physicaland Topographical Description of St. Helena.

Correspondence and Further Correspondence relating to the Island of Tristan da Cunha. Loudon, 1887, 1897, 1898-1903, and 1906.

SEYCHELLES.

Seychelles and its Dependencies consist of 90 islands and islets with a total estimated area of 160 square miles. The principal island is Mahe (55J square miles), smaller islands of the group being Praslin, Silhouette, La Digue, Curieuse, and Felicite. Among dependent islands are the Amirantes, Alphonse Island, Bijoutier Island, St. Fran(jois, St. Pierre, the Cosmoledo Group, Astove Island, Assumption Island, the Aldabra Islands, Providence Island, Coetivy, and Flat Island. The Seychelles were formerly administered from Mauritius, but in 1888 the office of Adminstrator was created, an Execu- tive Council of 3 ex-officio members was appointed and a Legislative Council of 3 official and 3 unofficial members the Administrator being president of both