Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/574

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470
SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA.

on this island, which is the most fertile of the Comoro group, yielding good crops, especially of sugar. Its Arab sultan resides at Msamudu, called also Anjuan, a sort of mediæval fortified town situated on the north-west side, and with a population of nearly four thousand.

Moheli (Moali), smallest of the Comoros, is also very fertile and abundantly

Fig. 145. — Mayotte.

watered. Its cocoanut, coffee, sugar, vanilla and clove plantations, chiefly owned by English capitalists, form a broad verdant zone round about the capital, Fomboni.

Great Comoro (Ngaziya), although the largest and most populous member of the archipelago, is little cultivated and seldom visited by traders, owing to the absence of water and good havens. The sultan resides at Muroni, a small place situated on a creek on the south west coast.