New Britain herald., 1922-08-18
ROYAL EX|LES ARE
 COMMON ON ISLANDS
People d Seychelles See no Novel;
 ty in UnCroWned MonarChs

Washington. D. C.. Aug. 1s-"En.
 tcrtaining royal exiles is an incident fl
 the annals of St. Helena and Ma.
 deira 1t is beginning to be an indus
 try in the Seychelles Islands where
 Zaghloul Pasha Is detained while certain factions in Egypt are agitat-
 ing for his return" says a bulletin from the Washington, D. C., head. quarters of the National Geographic
 society
 First the dethroned king of
 Ashanti was sent there and later the
 monarchs of Uganda and Unyorc were domiciled there for joining forces with mutinous troops in the
 Sudan.
 Noted for Coral and Cocoanuts.
 Besides exies, the Seychelles are noteworthy for coral and cocoanuts
 Approaching vessels steam through coral reefs to approach Port Victoria
 chief town of the group on the
 main island, Mahe. And the town itself lies glistening in the sun like a city of marble for coral rocks are used in building the neat, compact houses.
 "Cocoanut products form the prip- cipal commodity of export but the cocoanut which made the island fa- nous is the coco-de-mer, which weighs forty pounds or so, requires seven years to ripen, and grows on trees that take thirty-hve years to bear leaves. This 'cocoanut of the sea' was known before the islands were discovered. because the great double cocoanuts were cast up by the waves upon the shores of East Africa. They were believed to be of submarine origin and the native medicine men made much of them.
 Island Gems of Indian Ocean.
 ,''The Seychelles are the island gems of the Indian Ocean; an early British resident nicknamed them an Oceanic Garden of Eden. There are thirty or more of them, depending upon whether one cares to enumer- ate as islands numerous small reefs and rocks. With their dependencies the Amirantes and many others, their administrative area comprises nearly 100 small islands.
 The Seychelles proper lie 750 miles directly northeast of the north ern tip of Madagascar and almost 1000 miles northeast of Zanzibar The names of the individual islands frequently denote their outstanding quality which appealed to early ex- plorers, such as Silhouette, Curleuse cIrious), La Digne Ohe damp, and Felicite (blessed). The name of the group, however is not a variation of sea shells as might be suspected. but was given in honor of the finance minister under Louis XIV.
 Its dense iungles, curious plant pecimens, great trees festooned with trhilers, It's orchids and ferns and beg onias, green coral reefs and equable climate all make the Sey- chelles group altogether as delight full as the South Sea Islands which have been sought after and often de- scribed in recent years. One reason they have not registered with globe trotters and adventurous spirits is that they lack the picturesque na- tives of Tahiti or the Marquesas.
 Unique in Being Uninhabited.
 When the Portuguese found them about the time America was discov- cred they were uninha habited-almost a unique condition for land units of | their size and habitablity Eleven | years before the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock an English vessel stopped there; but 1t was nearly century and half after that the French settled there and claimed them.
 Their population today consists largely of French Creoles, freed slaves imported from Africa and set tiers from Mauritius, a few Indians from Malabar and few Chinese. Be- ginning with secret spice groves to combat the existing Dutch monopoly, their economic development turned in recent years to vanilla, then to cocoa nuts. which still is the principal pro duet, and within the present century were begun with rubber. On some of the smaller islands the natives eke out a living by hunting birds eggs and scraping guano off the granite to sell to the plantations of Mahe The islands now support about 10000 people, among whom fewer thanV1 ,oo0 are white"