'This is the only country in the world where the stranger is not asked 'How do you like this place.' This is indeed a large distinction. Here the citizen does the talking about the country himself; the stranger is not asked to help. You get all sorts of information. From one citizen you gather idea that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven; and that heaven was copied after Mauritius." -- Mark Twain
The Republic of Mauritius (or, as it is known in its local creole, “Repiblik Moris”) is in the Indian Ocean about 2,000 km (1,200 mi) off the African coast. Mark Twain recalled his first sight of the island in 1896: “Rugged clusters of crags and peaks, green to their summits; from their bases to the sea a green plain with just tilt enough to it to make the water drain off.” Though it was called Dina Arobi by the Arabs and Ilha do Cirne by the Portuguese, it was uninhabited until 1638, when admiral Wybrand van Warwyck claimed it for the Dutch and named it after the country’s second stadholder, Maurice van Nassau. The Dutch abandoned it in 1710 but the French, who already controlled the nearby Île Bourbon (now Réunion), recolonized it as Isle de France in 1715. But it was conquered by commodore Josias Rowley in 1810; the British restored the name Mauritius and ruled the island until its independence in 1968 (France continues to claim Tromelin Island, just as the British claim the nearby Chagos archipelago [the British Indian Ocean Territory]; they removed the population and leased its biggest island, Diego Garcia, to the US).
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