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. Being
presented with a gun and sword, he returned four cows, and proclaimed
liberty for the people to trade with us. He gave the English cocoa-nuts
to eat, while he chewed betel and areka-nut, tempered with lime of burnt
oister shells. It has a hot biting taste, voids rheum, cools the head,
and is all their physic. It makes those giddy who are not accustomed to
its use, producing red spittles, and in time colours the teeth black,
which they esteem handsome, and they use this continually. From the
governor they were conducted to the carpenter's house, who was a chief
man in the town. His house was built of stone and lime, low and little,
plaistered with white lime, roofed with rafters, which were covered with
leaves of the cocoa-nut tree, the outsides wattled with canes.
"Their houses are kept clean and neat, with good household stuff, having
gardens inclosed with canes, in which they grow tobacco and plantains.
For dinner, a board was set upon tressels, on which was spread a fine
new mat, and stone benches stood around, on which the guests sat. First,
water was brought to each in a cocoa-shell, and poured into a wooden
platter, and the rinds of cocoa-nuts were used instead of towels. There
was then set before the company boiled rice, roasted plantains, quarters
of hens, and pieces of goat's flesh broiled. After grace said, they fell
to their meat, using bread made of cocoa-nut kernels, beaten up with
honey, and fried. The drink was palamito wine, and the milk of the
cocoa-nuts. Those who went to see the sultan, named Amir Adell, found
all things much in the same manner, only that his behaviour was more
light, and he made haste to get drunk with some wine carried to him by
the English. The people of these islands are strict Mahomedans, and very
jealous of letting their women or mosques be seen. For, on some of the
English coming near a village, they shut them up, and threatened to kill
them if they came nearer. Many of them speak and write Arabic, and some
few of them Portuguese, as they trade with Mosambique in junks of forty
tons burden, built, caulked, and rigged all out of the cocoa-nut tree.
Here we bought oxen and cows, fat but small, Arabian sheep, hens,
oranges, lemons, and limes in abundance, paying for them in calicoes,
hollands, sword-blades, dollars, glasses, and other trifles." - T.R.
We sailed from Mohelia on the 2d August, and on the 17th got sight of
cape Guardafui, where the natives seemed afraid of us. The 20th we
anchored in the road of Galencia in Socotora, where the fierceness of
the wind raised the sea into a continual surf all round about us, and by
the spray, blown about us like continual rain, our masts, yards, and
tackle were made white all over by the salt, like so much hoar-frost;
The 23d we anchored at Tamara, the town where the king resides, and on
the 24th at Delisha. They here demanded thirty dollars for the quintal
of aloes, which made us buy the less. The Faiking told us that Captain
Downton had bought 100 quintals, and it was still so liquid, either
from newness, or because of the heat, that it was ready to run out of
the skins. The quintal of this place, as tried by our beam, weighed 103
1/2 pounds English. Aloes is made from the leaves of a plant resembling
our sempervivum, or house-leek, the roots and stalk being cut away, the
rest strongly pressed, and the juice boiled up to a certain height,
after which it is put into earthen pots, closely stopped for eight
months, and is then put into skins for sale. The north part of Socotora
is in 12 deg. 30', and the body in 120 deg. 25'.[166] It is fourteen leagues
from this island to Abdul Curia, and as much more from thence to cape
Guardafui. Such as mean to sail for Socotora, should touch at that cape,
and sail from thence next morning a little before day-break, to lose no
part of the day-light, the nights here being dark and obscure, with fogs
and boisterous winds, during the months of August and September.
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