Note 951 — Chapter XIII · —Island Peoples

The insular region of the Indian Ocean, which is inhabited by peoples quite different in race and cultural status from those of the Mediterranean, yet again demonstrates the power of islands to attract, preserve, multiply and concentrate population. This is especially true of the smaller islands, which in every case show a density of population many times that of the neighboring mainland of Africa. Only vast Madagascar, continental in size, repeats the sparsity of the continent. An oceanic climate increases the humidity of the islands as compared with the mainland lying in the same desiccating tradewind belt. Moreover their small area has enabled them to be permeated by incoming Arab, English, and French influences, which have raised their status of civilization and therewith the average density of population. This culminates in English Mauritius, which shows 540 inhabitants to the square mile, occupied in the production of sugar, molasses, rum, vanilla, aloes, and copra. In Zanzibar this density is 220 to the square mile; in Reunion 230; in Mayotte, the Comores and Seychelles, the average varies from 100 to 145 to the square mile, though Mahe in the Seychelles group has one town of 20,000 inhabitants.951