12th March: Mauritius Independence Day

Today is Mauritius Independence Day. 10 things you might not know about Mauritius:

1. Mauritius was uninhabited until 1638, when the Dutch established a colony. It had previously been visited by the Arabs, who called it Dina Arobi, and the Portuguese, who called it Cirne. It was the Dutch who gave it the name of Mauritius, after Prince Maurice van Nassau. It was also known as Isle de France, when the French colonised it in 1715.
2. The country has an area of 2,040 km2, including the island of Mauritius, Rodrigues, the islands of Agalega, and the archipelago of Saint Brandon.
3. The capital and largest city is Port Louis. Port Louis was set up in 1736 by the French East India Company, and is now home to 40% of the population.
4. The highest point is Piton de la Petite Rivière Noire at 828m.
5. The four colours in the Mauritian flag are red, blue, Yellow, and Green. These colours represent the Suberbe Flamboyant tree, the Indian Ocean, the light of independence, sunshine, and the island’s vegetation.
6. One of the tourist attractions is Chamarel Seven Coloured Earth. It is a small area of sand dunes where the sand is seven different colours - red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow. This phenomenon has been caused by the tropical climate, which has washed out the water soluble elements, leaving behind Iron and aluminium oxides in varying compositions. Another interesting property of the sand here is that if you took a handful of each colour and mixed them up, they will eventually separate back into individual colours.
7. Due to its strategic position, Mauritius was known as the "star and key" of the Indian Ocean. This is the motto which appears on the country's coat of arms.
8. Mauritius’s national flower is the Trochetia Boutoniana which blooms around June and October.
9. Its national bird is extinct. Mauritius was once the only home of the dodo, which, due to there being no natural predators, had evolved into a flightless bird. When humans arrived, they not only introduced animals like Rats, which would eat the dodo's eggs, but humans found the dodo rather tasty as well. Soon after humans arrived, the dodo was gone forever.
10. Mark Twain once said, “You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven, and that heaven was copied after Mauritius.”

Paperback - CreateSpace or Amazon RRP £8 but sometimes Amazon offer it for less!

Or get the E-book: Amazon Kindle Where you can use the "Look Inside" function and read the first few pages for free! And it's less than £2 to buy for your Kindle!

Don't want to risk it without reading a review? Visit Comfy Chair.

AND/OR:

Like my Writer Facebook Page

Read my thoughts on writing, short stories and book excerpts on My writing blog