Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

106 DHOW-CHASING.
this place only, althougli it has been transplanted
to India, and the Mauritius, where it
now grows ; this tree received its name originally
through a mistake on the part of some
French officers, who, picking up one of the
huge nuts at sea, never having seen it before,
and discovering it to be an unknown fruit, came
to the conclusion that it grew in the sea, and
gave it the name of *' coco-de-mer."
Large quantities of cocoa-nut oil is manufactured
here, the cocoa-nuts being collected from
the islands around, and from the Amirante
Islands, to the southward, where I have seen
cotton growing wild, as I have also on the East
Coast of Africa :
and here the question naturally
arises whether the cultivation of cotton in
Africa
might not do much to put an end to the
exportation of negroes from that country.
In 1862 the first hurricane for many years
swept over the Island of Mahe, throwing down
some of the high cUfis and killing about sixty
of the inhabitants. I shall hereafter allude to
these islands when considering their suitability
as a depot for liberated Africans.