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CH. V]
ISLANDS
45
The sea bordering on Tavoy is studded with small islets, the most noticeable, the three groups of Moscos, uninhabited save by builders of edible birds' nests; the largest, Tavoy Island. All along the coast of Mergui are the multitudinous clusters of the famous Mergui Archipelago hardly rivalled for picturesque beauty. Of these islands, 804 in number, the largest and almost the only one inhabited by civilized people is King Island (170 square miles) whereon is a rubber plantation. To enumerate others would be merely to give a catalogue of names. Many of these islands are the home of a strange people known as Salon or Mawken, by some called sea-gypsies[1]. Here are pearl fisheries, mentioned elsewhere.
- ↑ A full account of these people is given in The Sea Gypsies of Malaya by Walter Grainge White, F.R.G.S.
