13. The site of a mass suicide of runaway slaves in 1835, the “underwater waterfall” of Mauritius forms a bizarre part of the African island’s mythology
Mauritius, situated in the Indian Ocean, is an island nation located approximately 2,000 kilometers from the southeastern coast of Africa. Originally claimed by the Dutch in 1598, the oceanic paradise subsequently fell to the French, who then ceded it to the British, before finally becoming independent in 1965. Among the many natural wonders found on Mauritius, in recent years a spectacular illusion off the coast of Le Morne Brabant, a city on the southwestern tip of the island, has drawn particular attention: an underwater waterfall. Observable only from the air, underwater currents mixed with silt run-offs induce the impression that the entire island is being sucked beneath the waves.
Bizarrely, predating the discovery of this phenomenal mirage, the precise spot of the “waterfall” was the focal point of local legend. After the abolition of slavery in Mauritius in 1835, the authorities were dispatched to inform a community of runaway slaves that they were now free and could rejoin civilization. Misunderstanding the distant arrival of armed police, the slaves fled to the cliffs whereupon, electing to die freely rather than return to their masters, committed mass suicide into the ocean. Having “chosen the kiss of death over the chains of slavery”, this story has now become infused as an explanation for the geological curiosity within local mythology.