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V. 



REMARKS 



ON THE 



ISLAND OF HINZUAN, OR JOHANNA. 



BY THE PRESIDENT. 



HINZUAN (a name which has been gradually 

 corrupted into Anzuame, Anjuan, Juanny, and 

 Johanna) has been governed about two centuries by a 

 colony of Arabs, and exhibits a curious instance of 

 the slow approaches toward civilization, which are 

 made by a small community, with many natural ad- 

 vantages, but with few means of improving them. An 

 account of this African island, in which we hear the 

 language and see the manners of Arabia, may neither 

 be "uninteresting in itself, nor foreign to the objects of 

 inquiry proposed at the institution of our Society. 



On Monday, the 28th oi July, 1 783, after a voyage, 

 in the Crocodile, of ten weeks and two days from the 

 rugged islands of Cape Verd, our eyes were delighted 

 with a prospect so beautiful, that neither a painter nor 

 a poet could perfectly represent it, and so cheering to 

 us, that it can justly be conceived by such only as have 

 been in our preceding situation. It was the sun rising 

 in full splendor on the isle of May at a (as the seamen 

 called it) which we had joyfully distinguished the pre- 

 ceding afternoon by the height of its peak, and which 

 now appeared at no great distance from the windows 

 of our cabin j while Hinzuan, for which we had so 

 long panted, was plainly discernible a-head, where its 

 high lands presented themselves with remirkable bold- 

 ness. The weather was fair, the water smooth j and a 



