SEYCHELLES: Partying in Paradise

Every morning for the past three months, Seychelles islanders tuning in the country's only radio station have heard an imposing roll of kettledrums and the recitation of a proud though singularly infelicitous piece of doggerel: "Independence is a sheet of virgin snow/ On which our footsteps will surely show."

This is most unlikely, since the average yearly temperature of the Seychelles is 84° F. Still, the 60,000 inhabitants of this 92-island archipelago in the Indian Ocean were surely entitled to a bit of joyous befuddlement as their independence festivities began last week. Celebrating their break from Britain, the Seychellois danced...