OF THE MALDIVE ISLANDS. 
119 
fresh for planting. Contrasting Mahlos with other atolls, 
the comparative absence of yams, plantains (with the sole 
exception of Limbo Kandu), ala (Colocasia), funa (Calo- 
phyllum Inophyllum), papaws, and indeed of all food plants 
is very noticeable. Hitala (arrowroot, Tacca pinnatifida) 
occurs in nearly every large island, but in no luxuriance ; 
here only in the group is it regularly collected and eaten, 
the same remark applying to the mangrove also where it 
occurs. The cocoanuts are generally of small size, and the 
number per tree is considered by the natives very small. 
Generally the soil would not appear to be nearly as rich as 
in the eastern line of atolls. 
S. Mahlos has been for many years closely connected 
with Male, from which the inhabitants have obtained rice ; 
there is only evidence of grain having been grown in 
Doomfang in recent (about twenty-five) years. In N. Mahlos 
grain (Eleusine Coracana and Panicum miliaceum) seems to 
have been grown in nearly all the islands within the last 8~10 
years : in 1899, however, it was only grown in Kenurus, 
planted with the first rains of the little monsoon in April, 
and reaped in August. To plant it, the grass and shrubs 
being burnt off, the whole was surrounded by a cadjan fence 
1-2 feet high to keep off the rats, the surface smoothed by a 
rake and the grain strewn on by hand. None of the 
western islands of N. Mahlos are inhabited, but a few inner 
ones have villages of manufacturing or fishing castes. 
Ari and filEandu AtoEls. 
The descriptions of North Mahlos apply equally well to 
these atolls. The Island of Furadu produces small pineapples 
of poor quality and flavour. We coasted Ari close to the 
eastern shore for 15 miles, and steamed through N. and S. 
Nilandu, visiting, however, only Rimbuduin S. Nilandu and 
Mahikaddu in Ari, which in the general appearance of their 
foliage, as well as in the plants, exactly resembled islands in 
the same position in N. Mahlos. 
