Agaléga
Agaléga (french: îles Agaléga) is a dependency of Mauritius which consists of two outer islands located in the Indian Ocean, about north of Mauritius Island. The population of the islands as at July 2011 was estimated at 289. The islands have a total area of . The North island is long and wide, while the South island is long and wide. The North Island is home to the islands' airstrip and the capital Vingt-Cinq. The islands are known for their coconuts, the production of which is their main industry, and for the Agalega day gecko. There is a Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Mauritius and the Government of India to develop the Agaléga islands and allowing India to set up a military base there [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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João Da Nova
João da Nova ( gl, Xoán de Novoa, Joam de Nôvoa; es, Juan de Nova; ; born c. 1460 in Maceda, Ourense, Galicia; died July 16, 1509 in Kochi, India) was a Portuguese-Galician explorer of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans at the service of Portugal. He is credited as the discoverer of Ascension and Saint Helena islands. The Juan de Nova Island, in the Mozambique Channel, is named after him. The Farquhar atoll (in the Seychelles) was, for a long time, known as the João da Nova islands.The appellation 'João da Nova islands' for the Farquhar atoll appeared in most European navigational charts until the 19th century, when they were renamed after British Mauritius governor Robert Townsend Farquhar, to avoid confusion with the Mozambique Channel island. It is sometimes thought that the Agaléga islands (in the Indian Ocean) was also named after him (although it is almost certain he never visited them).Theories behind the 'Agalega' name are reviewed by Robert Scott (1961) ''Limuria: ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Agalega Day Gecko
Agalega day gecko (''Phelsuma borbonica agalegae'' Cheke, 1975) is a subspecies of geckos. General introduction This diurnal gecko only lives on the Agaléga Islands. It typically inhabits coconut trees or cheval trees. The Agalega day gecko feeds on insects and nectar. Description This lizard belongs to the medium-sized day geckos. Males are slightly larger than females and can reach a total length of about 16 cm whereas females measure only 13.5 cm. The basic body colour is grayish green. Both the head and the neck are yellow-brown. The tail and back can be bright turquoise. The flanks are grey or beige. The dorso-lateral bands are turquoise. On the back and tail there are brownish or red-brick coloured dots or bars. Distribution This species is endemic to the two Agalega islets. Habitat The two islands where ''P. borbonica agalega'' occurs, are small low coral sand islands. On these islands are mainly coconut tree plantations. The Agalega day gecko is often fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vingt-Cinq
Vingt-Cinq (''Twenty-five'' in French) is the capital of the Agaléga Islands, two islands in the Indian Ocean, governed by Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl .... It is located on the North Island, near a small airfield. In the town, there is a primary school (Jacques Le Chartier Government School) and a hospital. The name, Vingt-Cinq, is believed to refer to the number of lashes that slaves on the island received as punishment. Vingt-Cinq is located north of Mauritius, and has a population of 200 (2012). The people of the island are mostly of French descent; the descendants of the first slaves from mainland Africa and Madagascar to Mauritius also live on the island. References Populated places in Mauritius {{Mauritius-geo-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by the Southern Ocean or Antarctica, depending on the definition in use. Along its core, the Indian Ocean has some large marginal or regional seas such as the Arabian Sea, Laccadive Sea, Bay of Bengal, and Andaman Sea. Etymology The Indian Ocean has been known by its present name since at least 1515 when the Latin form ''Oceanus Orientalis Indicus'' ("Indian Eastern Ocean") is attested, named after India, which projects into it. It was earlier known as the ''Eastern Ocean'', a term that was still in use during the mid-18th century (see map), as opposed to the ''Western Ocean'' ( Atlantic) before the Pacific was surmised. Conversely, Chinese explorers in the Indian Ocean during the 15th century called it the Western Oceans. In Anci ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Réunion
Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island of Madagascar and southwest of the island of Mauritius. , it had a population of 868,846. Like the other four overseas departments, Réunion also holds the status of a region of France, and is an integral part of the French Republic. Réunion is an outermost region of the European Union and is part of the eurozone. Réunion and the fellow French overseas department of Mayotte are the only eurozone regions located in the Southern Hemisphere. As in the rest of France, the official language of Réunion is French. In addition, a majority of the region's population speaks Réunion Creole. Toponymy When France took possession of the island in the seventeenth century, it was named Bourbon, after the dynasty that then ruled France. To br ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Copra
Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from copra is rich in lauric acid, making it an important commodity in the preparation of lauryl alcohol, soaps, fatty acids, cosmetics, etc. and thus a lucrative product for many coconut-producing countries. The palatable oil cake, known as copra cake, obtained as a residue in the production of copra oil is used in animal feeds. The ground cake is known as coconut or copra meal. Production Copra has traditionally been grated and ground, then boiled in water to extract coconut oil. It was used by Pacific island cultures and became a valuable commercial product for merchants in the South Seas and South Asia in the 1860s. Nowadays, coconut oil (70%) is extracted by crushing copra; the by-product is known as copra cake or copra meal (30%). The coco ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or delegated authority issued commissions, also referred to as a letter of marque, during wartime. The commission empowered the holder to carry on all forms of hostility permissible at sea by the usages of war. This included attacking foreign vessels and taking them as prizes, and taking prize crews as prisoners for exchange. Captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize (law), prize law, with the proceeds divided by percentage between the privateer's sponsors, shipowners, captains and crew. A percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission (i.e. the sovereign). Privateering allowed sovereigns to raise revenue for war by mobilizing privately owned armed ships and sailors to supplement state power. For participants, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Castaway
A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island, either to evade captors or the world in general. A person may also be left ashore as punishment ( marooned). The provisions and resources available to castaways may allow them to live on the island until other people arrive to take them off the island. However, such rescue missions may never happen if the person is not known to still be alive, if the fact that they are missing is unknown, or if the island is not mapped. These scenarios have given rise to the plots of numerous stories in the form of novels and film. Real occurrences Thorgisl Icelander Thorgisl set out to travel to Greenland. He and his party were first driven into a remote sound on the east coast of Greenland. Thorgisl, his infant son, and several others were then abandoned there by their thralls. Thorgisl and his party traveled slowly along t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mascarene Islands
The Mascarene Islands (, ) or Mascarenes or Mascarenhas Archipelago is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar consisting of the islands belonging to the Republic of Mauritius as well as the French department of Réunion. Their name derives from the Portuguese navigator Pedro Mascarenhas, who first visited them in April 1512. The islands share a common geologic origin in the volcanism of the Réunion hotspot beneath the Mascarene Plateau and form a distinct ecoregion with a unique flora and fauna. Geography The archipelago comprises three large islands, Mauritius, Réunion, and Rodrigues, plus a number of volcanic remnants in the tropics of the southwestern Indian Ocean, generally between 700 and 1500 kilometres east of Madagascar. The terrain includes a variety of reefs, atolls, and small islands. They present various topographical and edaphic regions. On the largest islands these gave rise to unusual biodiversity. The climate is oceanic and tropical. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Diogo Lopes De Sequeira
D.Diogo Lopes de Sequeira (1465–1530) was a Portuguese fidalgo, sent to analyze the trade potential in Madagascar and Malacca. He arrived at Malacca on 11 September 1509 and left the next year when he discovered that Sultan Mahmud Shah was planning his assassination. This gave Afonso de Albuquerque the opportunity to embark upon his expedition of conquests. Sequeira was subsequently made governor of Portuguese India (1518–1522), and in 1520 led a military campaign into the Red Sea which hastened the first legitimate Portuguese embassy to Ethiopia. See also * Portuguese Malacca * Portuguese India The State of India ( pt, Estado da Índia), also referred as the Portuguese State of India (''Estado Português da Índia'', EPI) or simply Portuguese India (), was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded six years after the discovery of a s ... References Further reading * Ronald Bishop Smith, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, "Diogo Lopes de Sequeira: Elements on His Office of A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Scott (Mauritius)
Sir Robert Scott, (10 March 1903 – 28 May 1968) was a British colonial governor who served as the 27th Governor of Mauritius, 22 March 1954 to 10 July 1959. He wrote a history of the Islands called ''Limuria: The Lesser Dependencies of Mauritius'' Scott was educated at Highgate School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Modern History. He was appointed CMG in 1945, a Knight Bachelor in the 1953 New Year Honours, while he was Administrator at the East Africa High Commission, and KCMG in the 1954 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours 1954 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The appointments were made to celebrate .... References 1903 births 1968 deaths People educated at Highgate School Governors of British Mauritius Knights Bachelor Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George {{Mauri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |