2100 ft. The French headquarters are on the islet of Zaudzi, which lies within the reef in 12° 46′ S., 45° 20′ E. There are substantial government buildings and store-houses. On the mainland opposite Zaudzi is Msapéré, the chief centre of trade. Mayotte was devastated in 1898 by a cyclone of great severity.
4. Moheli or Mohilla lies S. of and between Anjuan and Grand Comoro. It is 15 m. long and 7 or 8 m. at its maximum breadth. Unlike the other three it has no peaks, but rises gradually to a central ridge about 1900 ft. in height. Fomboni (pop. about 2000) in the N.W. and Numa Choa in the S.W. are the chief towns.
All the islands possess a very fertile soil; there are forests of coco-nut palms, and among the products are rice, maize, sweet-potatoes, yams, coffee, cotton, vanilla and various tropical fruits, the papaw tree being abundant. The fauna is allied to that of Madagascar rather than to the mainland of Africa; it includes some land birds and a species of lemur peculiar to the islands. Large numbers of cattle and sheep, the former similar to the small species at Aden, are reared as well as, in Great Comoro, the zebra. Turtles are caught in abundance along the coasts, and form an article of export. The climate is in general warm, but not torrid nor unsuitable for Europeans. The dry season lasts from May to the end of October, the rest of the year being rainy. The natives are of mixed Malagasy, Negro and Arab blood. The majority are Mahommedans. The European inhabitants, mostly French, number about 600. There are some 200 British Indians, traders, in the islands. The external trade of the islands has developed since the annexation of Madagascar to France, and is of the value of about £100,000 a year. Sugar refineries, distilleries of rum, and sawmills are worked in Mayotte by French settlers. Cane sugar and vanilla are the chief exports. The islands are regularly visited by vessels of the Messageries Maritimes fleet, and a coaling station for the French navy has been established.
The islands were first visited by Europeans in the 16th century; they are marked on the map of Diego Ribero made in 1527. At that time, and for long afterwards, the dominant influence in, and the civilization of, the islands was Arab. According to tradition the islands were first peopled by Arab voyagers driven thither by tempests. The petty sultans who exercised authority were notorious slave traders. A Sakalava chief who had been driven from Madagascar by the Hovas took refuge in Mayotte c. 1830, and, with the aid of the sultan of Johanna, conquered the island, which for a century had been given over to civil war. French naval officers having reported on the strategic value of Mayotte, Admiral de Hell, governor of Réunion, sent an officer there in 1841, and a treaty was negotiated ceding the island to France. Possession was taken in 1843, the sultan of Johanna renouncing his claims in the same year. In 1886 the sultans of the other three islands were placed under French protection, France fearing that otherwise the islands would be taken by Germany. The French experienced some difficulty with the natives, but by 1892 had established their position. The islands, as regulated by the decree of the 9th of April 1908, are under the supreme authority of the governor-general of Madagascar. The local administration is in the hands of an official who himself governs Mayotte but is represented in the other islands by administrators. On the council which assists the governor are two nominated native notables. In 1910 the sultan of Great Comoro ceded his sovereign rights to France. In Anjuan the native government is continued under French supervision. The budgets of the four islands in 1904 came to some £30,000, that of Mayotte being about half the total. The chief sources of revenue are poll and house taxes, and, in Mayotte, a land tax.
The Iles Glorieuses, three islets 160 m. N.E. of Mayotte, with a population of some 20 souls engaged in the collection of guano and the capture of turtles, were in 1892 annexed to France and placed under the control of the administrator of Mayotte.
See Notice sur Mayotte et les Comores, by Emile Vienne, one of the memoirs on the French colonies prepared for the Paris Exhibition of 1900; Le Sultanat d’Anjouan, by Jules Repiquet (Paris, 1901), a systematic account of the geography, ethnology and history of Johanna; Les colonies françaises (Paris, 1900), vol. ii. pp. 179-197, in which the story of the archipelago is set forth by various writers; an account of the islands by A. Voeltzkow in the Zeitschrift of the Berlin Geog. Soc. (No. 9, 1906), and Carte des Iles Comores, by A. Meunier (Paris, 1904).
COMPANION (through the O. Fr. compaignon or compagnon,
from the Late Lat. companio,—cum, with, and panis, bread,—one
who shares meals with another; the word has been wrongly
derived from the Late Lat. compagnus, one of the same pagus or
district), a mess-mate or “comrade” (a term which itself has a
similar origin, meaning one who shares the same camera or room).
“Companion” is particularly used of soldiers, as in the expression
“companion in arms,” and so is the title of the lowest
rank in a military or other order of knighthood; the word is also
used of a person who lives with another in a paid position for the
sake of company, and is looked on rather as a friend than a
servant; and of a pair or match, as of pictures and the like.
Similar in ultimate origin but directly adapted from the Fr.
chambre de la compagne, and Ital. camera della compagna, the
storeroom for provisions on board ship, is the use of “companion”
for the framed windows over a hatchway on the deck of a ship,
and also for the hooded entrance-stairs to the captain’s cabin.
COMPANY, one of a number of words like “partnership,”
“union,” “gild,” “society,” “corporation,” denoting—each
with its special shade of meaning—the association of individuals
in pursuit of some common object. The taking of meals together
was, as the word signifies (cum, with, panis, bread,) a characteristic
of the early company. Gild had a similar meaning: but
this characteristic, though it survives in the Livery company
(see Livery Companies), has in modern times disappeared.
The word “company” is now monopolized—in British usage—by
two great classes of companies—(1) the joint stock company,
constituted under the Companies (Consolidation) Act 1908,
which consolidated the various acts from 1862 to 1907, and (2)
the “public company,” constituted under a special act to carry
on some work of public utility, such as a railway, docks, gasworks
or waterworks, and regulated by the Companies Clauses
Acts 1845 and 1863.
1. Joint Stock Companies.
The joint stock company may be defined as an association of persons incorporated to promote by joint contributions to a common stock the carrying on of some commercial enterprise. Associations formed not for “the acquisition of gain” but to promote art, science, religion, charity or some other useful or philanthropic object, though they may be constituted under the Companies (Consolidation) Act 1908, seldom call themselves companies, but adopt some name more appropriate to express their objects, such as society, club, institute, college or chamber. The joint stock company has had a long history which can only be briefly sketched here. The name of “joint stock company” is—or was—used to distinguish such a company from the “regulated company,” which did not trade on a joint stock but was in the nature of a trade gild, the members of which had a monopoly of foreign trade with particular countries or places (see Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. i. pt. iii.).
The earliest kind of joint stock company is the chartered (see Chartered Companies). The grant of a charter is one of the exclusive privileges of the crown, and the crown has from time to time exercised it in furtherance of trading enterprise. Examples of such grants are the Merchant Adventurers of England, chartered by Richard II. (1390); the East India Co., chartered by Queen Elizabeth (1600); the Bank of England, chartered by William and Mary (1694); the Hudson’s Bay Co.; the Royal African Co.; the notorious South Sea Co.; and in later times the New Zealand Co., the North Borneo Co., and the Royal Niger Co. Chartered companies had, however, several disadvantages. A charter was not easily obtainable. It was costly. The members could not be made personally liable for the debts of the company: and once created—though only for defined objects—such a company was invested with entire independence and could not be kept to the conditions imposed by the grant, which was against public policy. A new form of commercial association was wanted, free from these defects, and it was found in the common law
