JOHANNA-MEN. 



341 



crew of an East Indiaman wrecked whilst en 

 route to Bombay. The Sultan of Johanna received 

 in return a magnificent present from the H. E. 

 L Company, and the Comoro Islanders gained 

 for themselves a permanent good name. A con- 

 siderable emigration was caused in the early part 

 of the present century by intestine divisions and 

 by piratical attacks from Madagascar, whilst 

 the slave emancipation by the Erench in 1847 

 set a large class free to travel. Of late they have 

 displayed a savage and mutinous spirit, and 

 two men were put to death for attempting with 

 peculiar audacity the life of the young chief, 

 Abdullah. 



Amongst Eastern impostors the Comoro, 

 especially the Johanna men, are facile principes : 

 the singular scoundrels have completely mastered 

 the knack of cajoling Europeans — no Syrian 

 Dragoman can do it better. Once or twice a year 

 they tell-off begging-parties, who visit Mauritius 

 and Aden, Bombay and Calcutta, and who invari- 

 ably represent themselves as being on 6 Church- 

 bijness,' i.e. pilgrimage. Linguists, after the fash- 

 ion of Egyptian donkey-boys, they also have the 

 habit, like the petty Shaykhs and Emirs in the 

 Libanus, of calling themselves ' princes.' More 

 than one scion of Comoro loyalty, after obtain- 



