ON THE ISLAND OF SOCOTBA. 491 



to whicli we listened on Thursday last, referred to the herbarium brought 

 from Central Africa by Mr. Joseph Thomson, and remarked that ' it 

 contained many of the endemic genera and even species of the Cape of 

 Good Hope ' — a fact most interesting as showing the prescience of a 

 suggestion made many years ago by Sir Joseph Hooker ' that the South 

 African flora has once been continued along the highlands of East Africa 

 from Natal to Abyssinia.' Mr. Baker, too, on Friday read a most valuable 

 paper on the flora of Madagascar, in which he pointed out the marked 

 African affinities of that island, and its connection with the Cape and 

 Central African forms. 



And now from Socotra we learn the same story, and are therefore 

 forced to the conclusion that we have here a remnant of an old African 

 flora, of which, at the present day, the Cape is the southern, Abyssinia the 

 northern, and this, along with Madagascar, the eastern extension. 



The botanical evidence, it will be seen, bears out in a most emphatic 

 manner the conclusions founded upon the fauna. From its geographical 

 position one would a priori be led to regard Socotra as an outlier from 

 the African continent, separated in the progress of cosmical change. 

 The whole natural history of the island — geology, zoology, and botany 

 — bears out this view. 



Of plants cultivated on the island the most important is the date-palm. 

 Every stream on the island is lined by groves of them, and the fruit is 

 used, both ripe and unripe. Melons are grown, as also small onions. 

 Little cereal culture is indulged in. Here and there, on the hills beside 

 a stream, a small enclosux-e of ' bombe ' (jowari) may be seen, but the 

 inhabitants are too lazy to cultivate to any extent, the watering requiring 

 too much labour. Only in one spot was there observed an attempt at 

 irrigation. 



Our expedition was essentially a botanical one, and the time at our 

 disposal being limited, many points of interest regarding the people and 

 their mode of life could not be investigated. But the island does possess 

 great ethnological interest, as its history will have shown you, besides the 

 somewhat melancholy interest which, as Colonel Tule remarks, attaches 

 to a people once Christian, and now lapsed into a semi-barbarous condition. 

 I may, however, shortly bring before you some facts regarding the inha- 

 bitants. 



The extent of population it is impossible to estimate, as so many 

 people live in caves, and one only occasionally came across the wandering 

 inhabitants of the hill region. 



In speaking of the people, the dwellers on the shore must be dis- 

 tinguished from those on the hills. The former, who are a mixed population 

 of Arabs, Indians, and Africans of various tribes, live in small towns. Of 

 these at present the chief is Tamarida, on the extensive Hadibu plain at 

 the base of the Haggler range of hills. It is the capital of the island, and 

 consists of a number of stone and lime houses, of the ordinary construction 

 seen in Arabia, all plastei'ed outside of a dazzling white, and surrounding 

 a large one, which is the Sultan's palace. Around the town is a dense date- 

 grove. There is a mosque and well-filled graveyard in the centre of the 

 town. The number of inhabitants is set down at about 400. Kadhab is 

 another village, lying on a sandy spit east from Tamarida. The houses 

 here are of the same character as at Tamarida, and there is a mosque. 

 Gollonsir, at the west end is the penal settlement, and has but few houses. 

 Formerly the capital of the island was Suk, at the east edge of the Hadibu 



