In Mohelia, We
Bought Two Or Three Bullocks For A Bar Of Iron Of Between Twenty And
Twenty-Five Pounds Weight.
We bought in all 200 head of cattle, and
forty goats, besides poultry, fruits, &c.
"Malalia [Mohelia] is one of the Commora islands, the other three
being Angazesia, [Comoro] Juanny, [Joanna or Hinzuan] and Mayotta,
stretching almost east and west from each other. Angazesia [Comoro]
bears N. by W. from Mohelia, and is the highest land I ever saw. It is
inhabited by Moors trading with the main and the other three eastern
islands, bartering their cattle and fruits for calicoes and other cloths
for garments. It is governed by ten petty kings, and has abundance of
cattle, goats, oranges, and lemons. The people are reckoned false and
treacherous. Hinzuan lies east from Mohelia and Mayotta. All these
three islands are well stored with refreshments, but chiefly Mohelia,
and next to it Hinzuan. Here lived an old woman who was sultaness of all
these islands, and under her there were three deputies in Mohelia, who
were all her sons. The sultan in whose quarter we anchored is so
absolute, that none of his people dared to sell a single cocoa-nut
without his leave. Four boats were sent to his town to desire this
liberty, which was granted. Captain Newport went ashore with forty men,
and found the governor sitting on a mat, under the side of a junk which
was then building, and attended by fifty men. He was dressed in a mantle
of blue and red calico, wrapped about him to his knees, his legs and
feet bare, and his head covered by a close cap of checquer work.
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