340 



4 comoro-men: 



ticed. During the season a few run down from 

 Makdishu and Brava, to trade and barter hides 

 and cattle. There are almost 2000 men from 

 Angazijeh (Great Comoro), Mayotta, Hinzuwan 

 or Anjuan (Johanna), and Muhayli. The word 

 Comoro is evidently corrupted Arabic, meaning 

 Moon-Island. The natives of the Archipelago 

 here preserve their own language, which seems 

 to be a superstruction of Javanese and Bali, 

 Arabic, and Sanskrit erected upon a primitive 

 insular dialect, meagre and un- Aryan. Others 

 have detected in it a resemblance to that of the 

 Philippine Islands, 1 and hold the people to be 

 of Malay origin. The blood was Persianized and 

 Arabized in the 12th century, and the Sultan and 

 chiefs have ever since retained the Semitic physi- 

 ognomy ; but the extensive negro innervation 

 has so tainted the blood that no difference can 

 be perceived in the characteristic effluvium 

 between them and the Wasawahili. It is curious 

 to hear them, withal, boast of their Koraysh de- 

 scent, and pride themselves upon the glories of 

 the ancient race that produced the ' Rasul Ullah.' 

 In a.d. 1774 they hospitably entertained the 



1 I state this upon the authority of Lieut.-Colonel Hamer- 

 ton. Capt. Guillain (iii. 414) appears to think the language 

 Zangian much mixed with Arabic. 



