This group is composed of 29 islands, with an area of 153 square miles, and is located in the Western Indian Ocean about a thousand miles east of Zanzibar. The French settled these in 1742, which remained their territory for 50 years, when England added them to her possessions. The 30,000 inhabitants of the islands speak the French tongue. Unlike most sections of Africa, the climate here is healthful, the group being often referred to as the Garden of Eden. Cocoa oil and vanilla are the principal exports; tea, coffee, banana, cocoanut and other tropical growths also flourish. The natives are yellow in color, but not negroid. American five-gallon oil tins are in evidence in that isolated "oasis" of the world.
We traveled northwest from Seychelles, when we recrossed the equator, leaving behind the towering palms of Rio; the circling albatross and pretty Cape pigeons, the whales, flambeau trees, Zulu ricksha pullers, gold and diamond mines, Victoria Falls, and shapely mountains of South Africa; Australia, New Zealand, and the South Sea Islands; the interesting East Coast of Africa and Zanzibar; leafless trees, game preserves, green-island dotted Victoria Nyanza, nimble monkeys disporting in treetops, ant-eating natives, pretty birds, Ripon Falls, the tsetse fly—mindful only of the interesting and fascinating—and, lastly, the Southern Cross, as we say a final good-by to the attractive Southland and the kind people living in that division of the world.
"The anchor rattles down on stranger shores." We had stopped at Morumgoa, Portuguese-India, where most of the black passengers left the ship. Goa is the name of this Portuguese colony, which embraces an area of 1,500 square miles, and has been ruled by Portugal since the fifteenth century. Half a million Portuguese subjects live in Goa, and from that place comes the Goanese. They consider themselves Europeans, dress like Europeans, but are as black as an Indian. Stewards on passenger steamships in the East are generally Goanese, as they make better servants than Indians. The passengers were returning from Africa, where they had earned from $20 to $30 a month, very good wages for them. They had saved enough in Africa to live in ease at home for a long time, and would send friends across the Indian Ocean to take their places.
Another day's travel within sight of the Indian shore, and we sailed into the east bay of Bombay harbor, when a splendid panorama—the city on our left, the bay in front, and green hills and islands to the right—spread out before us. We had reached Asia—Leg Six.
The Parsi (a Persian) is the financial power in Bombay, coming to India a long time ago, when his empire was destroyed by the Mohammedans. Persecuted by Indians for centuries, his progress is entirely due to the protection he has received under England's strong arm. Bombay has been an English possession for 300 years.
The Parsi is lighter in color than the Indian, dresses differently, thinks he is better than the native, will not eat food prepared by others, and does not marry outside his own race. A majority of Parsis wear spectacles—possibly one of the results of tribal intermarriage.
One is surprised, on visiting this Parsi stronghold, at the splendid buildings, rising bulky and high, about the city. The streets in the business section are good and the walks in fair condition. A good system of stone and cement docks impresses the visitor. Ships are so numerous at this port that some of the vessels have to remain in harbor for days, and even weeks, before docking room is available. A large dry dock was under course of construction at this time, and other important improvements were in evidence all along the water front.
Trucking is done by oxen; horses are never seen drawing heavy loads. The Bombay truck is a two-wheeled cart, thousands of these, loaded with cotton bales and various merchandise, slowly moving about the city all the while. When drivers wish to speed their oxen they twist their tails. From this method of forcing the animals, the pronounced corrugated nature of their tails suggests that the joints had been wrenched apart numerous times.
Bombay cotton mills number about a hundred and furnish employment for over 200,000. Indian cotton is not so good as that grown in the United States, and for this reason hundreds of thousands of bales are imported from America each year to mix with the native product. Cotton is worn mainly by the natives, and, as the Indian woman has a weakness for colors, groups of these make a picturesque showing.
Indian women work side by side with men and receive the same wages. The work engaged in may be carrying earth from an excavation, loading dirt into carts, shoveling coal, or lifting bales of cotton. These are known as coolies, and no distinction is made between male and female, English rule has given some workers in India a short day, but others work 10 and 12 hours. The wages paid coolies in Bombay are from six to eight cents a day. A woman may be carrying material to masons working on a wall of a building and her babe be sleeping behind a pile of bricks. When the child requires its mother's attention the hod-carrier walks over to the infant, remains a short while, then leaves, loads her basket with brick, lifts it to her head, and starts up the ladder with the material.