OF THE MALDIVE ISLANDS. 123 
people. Midu is entirely an agricultural village, but Huludu 
is inhabited by high caste people and sailors who trade up 
and down the group ; it usually also sends two or three ships 
a year to the Hooghly, and has traditions of an Arabian trade 
in times past. The village itself is full of fine houses with 
large compounds, in which one may recognize almost as 
great a variety of spices and other cultivated plants as at 
Male. Every available inch of the island is cultivated, 
except a narrow debatable strip between the two villages. 
The people for the most part live on fish and on the vege- 
tables they grow ; no grain was, so far as I could ascertain, 
ever grown, and rice is not much imported. Cocoanuts are 
planted right up to the beach on every side, and are of 
greater size and luxuriance than any I have seen in Ceylon 
or the Pacific. They also bear heavier crops both in number 
and size ; 60 trees are supposed to yield 1,000 nuts worth 
Rs. 45 in Calcutta, and about 4,750 nuts give a ton of copra. 
The kurumba or yellow form is not grown, but a green form 
with sweet husk is regularly cultivated for the crews of the 
vessels. The centre of the island has a great fresh water 
marsh overgrown with Cladium jamaicense, with Pycreus 
polystachyus near the edges. The north part of this has 
been reclaimed and turned into a great yam and sweet 
potato flat, the latter dug four times a year. Between it and 
the marsh long beds have been planted with Colocasia anti- 
quorum, some of which is almost growing in the water. 
Near the village are extensive plantations of plantains, of 
which the people distinguish five varieties, and areca palms 
grow everywhere in competition with the cocoanut. Each 
house has its papaws and bread-fruits, and pumpkins, water 
melons, chillies, and betel grow almost semi-wild in their 
compounds. The debatable ground is covered with Hibiscus 
tiliaceus struggling with Hernandia peltata, both of which 
almost appear as if planted. The roads are everywhere well 
kept ; they are edged for the most part with grass, flowering 
dicotyledonous weeds being remarkably scarce and not as 
( 17 ) 
