A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume II Part 41

187 toises, or in French feet, 1123 Correction for excess of thermometers above 70, + 25 Supposed elevation of M. Pitot's house above the sea, + 40 ---- Elevation of Vacouas in French feet, 1188

The English foot being to the French, as 12 is to 12.816, the height of Vacouas above the level of the sea should be nearly 1269 English feet.]

The princ.i.p.al rivers in the neighbourhood are the R. du Tamarin and the R. du Rempart, each branching into two princ.i.p.al arms; these collect all the smaller streams in this portion of the island, and arriving by different routes at the same point, make their junction at the head of the Baye du Tamarin, where their waters are discharged into the sea. In wet weather these rivers run with great force, but in ordinary times they do not contain much water; and their smaller branches are mostly dried up in October and November. Both arms of the R. du Rempart take their rise between one and two miles to the S. by E. of the Refuge, and within half a mile of the Mare aux Vacouas, from which it is thought their sources are derived; the western arm bears the name of R. des Papayas, probably from the number of those trees found on its banks;* and taking its course northward, is the boundary between two series of plantations, until it joins the other branch at the foot of the Montagne du Rempart and its name is lost. The Refuge was one of these plantations bounded by the R.

des Papayes, being situate on its eastern bank, and receiving from it an accession of value; for this arm does not dry up in the most unfavourable seasons, neither does it overflow in the hurricanes.

[* The papaye, papaya, or papaw, is a tree well known in the East and West Indies, and is common in Mauritius; the acrid milk of the green fruit, when softened with an equal quant.i.ty of honey, is considered to be the best remedy against worms, with which the negroes and young children, who live mostly on vegetable diet, are much troubled.]

The eastern arm bears the name of R. du Rempart throughout, from its source near the _mare_ or lake to its embouchure. Its course is nearly parallel to that of the sister stream, the distance between them varying only from about half a mile to one hundred and twenty yards; and the Refuge, as also the greater number of plantations on the eastern, or right bank of the R. des Papayes, is divided by it into two unequal parts, and bridges are necessary to keep up a communication between them.

Although the source of this arm be never dried up, yet much of its water is lost in the pa.s.sage; and during five or six months of the year that nothing is received from the small branches, greater or less portions of its bed are left dry; there seems, however, to be springs in the bed, for at a distance from where the water disappears a stream is found running lower down, which is also lost and another appears further on. In the summer rains, more especially in the hurricanes, the R. du Rempart receives numberless re-enforcements, and its torrent then becomes impetuous, carrying away the bridges, loose rocks, and every moveable obstruction; its partial inundations do great damage to the coffee trees, which cannot bear the water, and in washing off the best of the vegetable soil. During these times, the communication between those parts of the plantations on different sides of the river is cut off, until the waters have in part subsided; and this occurred thrice in one year and a half.

At the western end of the Mare aux Vacouas is an outlet through which a constant stream flows, and this is the commencement of the princ.i.p.al branch of the R. du Tamarin; the other branch, called the R. des Aigrettes, is said to take its rise near a more distant lake, named the Grand Ba.s.sin; and their junction is made about one mile to the S. S. W.

of the Refuge, near the boundary ridge of the high land, through which they have made a deep cut, and formed a valley of a very romantic character. A short distance above their junction, each branch takes a leap downward of about seventy feet; and when united, they do not run above a quarter of a mile northward before they descend with redoubled force a precipice of nearly one hundred and twenty feet; there are then one or two small cascades, and in a short distance another of eighty or a hundred feet; and from thence to the bottom of the valley, the descent is made by smaller cascades and numberless rapids. After the united stream has run about half a mile northward, and in that s.p.a.ce descended near a thousand feet from the level of Vacouas, the river turns west; and pa.s.sing through the deep cut or chasm in the boundary ridge, enters the plain of Le Tamarin and winds in a serpentine course to the sea.

The R. du Tamarin is at no time a trifling stream, and in rainy weather the quant.i.ty of water thrown down the cascades is considerable; by a calculation from the estimated width, depth, and rate of the current after a hurricane, the water then precipitated was 1500 tons in a minute.

There are some points on the high land whence most of the cascades may be seen at one view, about a mile distant; from a nearer point some of them are perceived to the left, the Trois Mamelles tower over the woods to the right, and almost perpendicularly under foot is the impetuous stream of the river, driving its way amongst the rocks and woods at the bottom of the valley. In front is the steep gap, through which the river rushes to the low land of Le Tamarin; and there the eye quits it to survey the sugar plantations, the alleys of tamarinds and mangoes, the villages of huts, and all the party-coloured vegetation with which that district is adorned; but soon it pa.s.ses on to the Baye du Tamarin, to the breakers on the coral reefs which skirt the sh.o.r.e, and to the sea expanded out to a very distant horizon. An elevation of ten or eleven hundred feet, and the distance of three or four miles which a spectator is placed from the plantations, gives a part of this view all the softness of a well-finished drawing; and when the sun sets in front of the gap, and vessels are seen pa.s.sing before it along the coast, nothing seems wanting to complete this charming and romantic prospect.

Amongst the natural curiosities of Mauritius may be reckoned the _Mare aux Vacouas_, situate about two miles S. by E. of the Refuge. It is an irregular piece of fresh water of about one mile in length, surrounded with many hundred acres of swampy land, through which run four or five little streams from the back hills; in some places it is from 20 to 25 fathoms deep, as reported, and is well stocked with eels, prawns and a small red fish called _dame-cere_, originally brought from China. The eels and prawns are indigenous, and reach to a large size; the latter are sometimes found of six inches long without the beard, and the eels commonly offered for sale ran from six to twenty, and some were said to attain the enormous weight of eighty pounds. This fish is delicate eating, and the largest are accounted the best; its form has more affinity to the conger than to our fresh-water eel, and much resembles, if it be not exactly the same species caught in the small streams of Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean. Whence it is that fresh-water fish should be found on small islands, frequently at several hundred leagues from other land, will probably long remain one of the secrets of nature; if it were granted that they might come by sea, the difficulty would scarcely be less to know how they should have mounted precipices of many hundred feet, to reach lakes at the tops of mountains where they are not uncommonly seen.

Five or six miles to the south of the Refuge lies another lake of fresh water, called the _Grand Ba.s.sin_; its situation is more elevated than Vacouas, and except the ridges and tops of mountains, it seemed to be in the highest part of the island. This basin is nearly half a mile in diameter, of a form not far from circular, and is certainly deep; but that it should be 84 fathoms as was said, is scarcely credible. The banks are rocky, and appear like a mound thrown up to keep the water from overflowing; and the surrounding land, particularly to the south, being lower than the surface of the water, gives the Grand Ba.s.sin an appearance of a cauldron three-quarters full. No perceptible stream runs into it, but several go out, draining through hollow parts of the rocky bank, and forming the commencement of so many rivers; the Rivieres des Anguilles, Dragon, and du Poste fall into the sea on the south or south-east parts of the island; the R. des Aigrettes before mentioned, and the R. Noire which runs westward, rise not far off, but their a.s.serted subterraneous communication with the basin is doubtful. No great difference takes place in the level of the water except after heavy rains; when the supply, which must princ.i.p.ally come from springs in the bottom, so far exceeds the quant.i.ty thrown out, as to raise it sometimes as much as six feet.

On the western bank is a peaked hill, from which the Grand Ba.s.sin is not only seen to much advantage, but the view extends over great part of Mauritius, and in several places to the horizon of the sea. It was apparent from hence, that between the mountains behind Port Louis and those of La Savanne to the south, and from the R. Noire eastward to Port Bourbon, not one-half, probably not a third part of the primitive woods were cut down; and this s.p.a.ce comprehends three-fifths of the island, but excludes great part of the sh.o.r.es, near which the plantations are most numerous.

The elevated bank round the Grand Ba.s.sin consists partly of stones thrown loosely together; though porous, the stone is heavy and hard, of a dark grey colour, and contains numerous specks of what seemed to be feldtspath, with sometimes particles of mica and olivine; it is more or less ferruginous, gives a bell-like sound when struck, and in some parts appeared to have run in the manner of lava. From this description, and the circular form and elevated position of this basin, the geologist will probably be induced to think it the crater of an ancient volcano; and since there are other large holes nearly similar to it, and many caverns and streams under ground in other parts, it may perhaps be concluded that if the island do not owe its origin to subterraneous fire, it has yet been subject to volcanic eruptions, and that the Grand Ba.s.sin was one of the vents.

Such were the rivers, lakes, and views which most excited my excursions to the north, the west, and south of the Refuge. To the east at a league distance, there was, according to my information, a lake called the Mare aux Joncs, from whence rises the R. du Menil; and taking its course northward, joins the R. de Wilhems and at length falls into the Grande Riviere. At a further distance several other streams were said to rise, some running northward to the same destination as the above, and others south-eastward towards Port Bourbon; but having never visited this part of my limits, I can speak of it only from report, corroborated by a view of the chart. The country was represented as less inhabited than Vacouas, owing to the want of roads and consequent difficulty of conveyance to the town, upon which the value of land very much depends: an uncleared _habitation_* near the Mare aux Joncs was sold for 500 dollars, whilst the same quant.i.ty of land at Vacouas was worth six times that sum.

[* The original concessions of land in Mauritius were usually of 156 _arpents_, of 40,000 French square feet each, making about 160 acres English; this is called _un terrein d'habitation_, and in abridgment a _habitation_, although no house should be built, nor a tree cut down; by corruption however, the word is also used for any farm or plantation, though of much smaller extent.]

Upon the high land near the Grand Ba.s.sin and in some other central parts of Mauritius, a day seldom pa.s.ses throughout the year without rain; even at Vacouas it falls more or less during six or eight months, whilst in the low lands there is very little except from December to March. This moisture creates an abundance of vegetation, and should have rendered the middle parts of the island extremely fertile; as they would be if the soil were not washed down to the low lands and into the sea, almost as soon as formed. Large timber, whose roots are not seen on the surface, and a black soil, are here the exterior marks of fertility; but near the Grand Ba.s.sin the trees are small, though thickly set, and the roots, unable to penetrate below, spread along the ground. The little soil which has acc.u.mulated seemed to be good, and it will increase, though slowly; for the decayed wood adds something to its quant.i.ty every year, whilst the trunks and roots of the trees save a part from being washed away.

Both these advantages are lost in the cleared lands of Vacouas, which besides are made to produce from two to four crops every year; the soil is therefore soon exhausted, and manuring is scarcely known. A plantation covered with loose rocks is found to retain its fertility longest; apparently from the stones preserving the vegetable earth against the heavy rains, as the roots of the trees did before the ground was cleared.

Much of the lower part of Wilhems Plains has been long cleared and occupied, and this is one of the most agreeable portions of the island; but Vacouas is in its infancy of cultivation, three-fourths of it being still covered with wood. This neglect it owes to the coldness and moisture of the climate rendering it unfit for the produce of sugar and cotton, to its being remote from the sea side, and more than all to its distance from the town of Port Louis, the great mart for all kinds of productions. Mauritius is not laid out like the counties in England and other parts of Europe, with a city or market town at every ten or twenty miles; nor yet like the neighbouring isle Bourbon, where there are two or three towns and some villages; it has but one town, which is the seat of government and commerce for both islands. In other parts the plantations are scattered irregularly; and although half a dozen houses may sometimes be found near together, families within a mile of each other are considered as next door neighbours. There being few tradesmen except in the town, the more considerable planters have blacksmiths, carpenters, and one or more taylors and shoemakers amongst their slaves, with forges and workshops on their plantations; but every thing they have occasion to buy, even the bread for daily consumption, is generally brought from Port Louis.

The produce of the different districts in Mauritius varies according to the elevation and climate of each; and the temperature of Vacouas being better suited to European vegetables, the daily supply of the bazar or market with them, is a great object to the inhabitants. Owing to the bad roads and excessive price of beasts of burthen, the manner universally adopted of sending these supplies is upon the heads of slaves; and the distance being twelve heavy miles, this employment occupies nearly the whole time of two or more strong negroes, besides that of a trusty man in the town to make the necessary purchases and sales. The distance of a plantation from Port Louis therefore causes a material increase of expense and inconvenience for this object alone, and is one reason why Vacouas is less cultivated than many other districts; in proportion, however, as timber becomes more scarce in the neighbourhood of the town, the woods of Vacouas will rise in value and present a greater inducement to clear the lands. Timber and planks for ships, and also for building houses, with shingles to cover them, were fast increasing in demand; and the frequent presence of English cruisers, which prevented supplies being sent from La Savanne and other woody parts of the sea coast, tended powerfully to throw this lucrative branch of internal commerce more into the hands of the landholders at Vacouas, and to clear the district of its superfluous woods.

Besides various kinds of excellent timber for building, these woods contain the black ebony, the heart of which is sold by weight. The tree is tall and slender, having but few branches which are near the top; its exterior bark is blackish, the foliage thick, and the leaf, of a dark green above and pale below, is smooth, not very pointed, and larger than those of most forest trees. It produces cl.u.s.ters of an oblong fruit, of the size of a plum, and full of a viscous, sweetish juice, rather agreeable to the taste. The ordinary circ.u.mference of a good tree is three or four feet; when cut down, the head lopped off and exterior white wood chipped away, a black log remains of about six inches in diameter, and from twelve to fifteen feet in length, the weight of which is something above 300 pounds. In 1806 several inhabitants permitted a contractor to cut down their ebony, on condition of receiving half a Spanish dollar for each hundred pounds of the black wood; others cut it down themselves, trimmed and piled the logs together, and sold them on the spot for one dollar the hundred; but those who possessed means of transporting the wood to town, obtained from 1 to 2 dollars, the price depending upon the supply, and the number of American vessels in port, bound to China, whither it was princ.i.p.ally carried. Many of the plantations in Vacouas were thus exhausted of their ebony; and the tree is of so slow a growth, that the occupiers could expect afterwards to cut those only which, being too small, they had before spared; these were very few, for the object of the planter being generally to realize a sum which should enable him to return to Europe, the future was mostly sacrificed to present convenience.

Such cleared parts of Vacouas as are not planted with maize, manioc, or sweet potatoes for the support of the slaves, or with vegetables and fruits for the bazar, are commonly laid out in coffee plantations, which were becoming more an object of attention, as they have long been at Bourbon; the great demand made for coffee by the Americans, and its consequent high price, had caused this object of commerce to flourish in both islands, notwithstanding the war. Indigo and the clove tree were also obtaining a footing at Vacouas; but the extensive plantations of sugar cane and cotton shrubs found in the low parts of the island, appeared not to have been attempted, and it is certain that the cotton would not succeed.

The portions of each habitation allotted to different objects of culture, are usually separated by a double row of some tree or shrub, either useful or ornamental, with a road or path running between the lines.

Amongst the useful is the vacoua or panda.n.u.s; whose leaves being strongly fibrous, long, spreading, and armed with p.r.i.c.kles, both form a tolerable fence and supply a good material for making sacks, bags, etc. It is only whilst young that the vacoua answers this double purpose; but the tree is twelve or fifteen years before it arrives at maturity, and the leaves may be annually cut: no other use is made of the fruit than to plant it for the production of other trees. A double row of the tall jamb-rosa, or rose apple, makes the princ.i.p.al divisions in some plantations, forming agreeable, shady walks; and from the shelter it affords is preferred for surrounding the coffee trees, which require the utmost care to protect them from hurricanes. A tree once violently shaken, dies five or six months afterward, as it does if water stand several days together round its foot; sloping situations, where the water may run off, are therefore preferred for it, and if rocky they are the more advantageous, from the firmness which the roots thereby acquire to resist the hurricanes. Rows of the banana, of which the island possesses a great variety of species, are also planted by the sides of the paths leading through the habitations, sometimes behind the vacoua, but often alone; the pine apple serves the same purpose in others, as do the peach and other fruit trees where the paths are more considerable. A long and strong gra.s.s, called _vitti-vert_, is occasionally preferred for the lines of division; this is cut twice or thrice in the year to be used as thatch, for which it is well adapted. Hedges of the ever-flowering China rose, and of the _netshouly_, a bushy shrub from India which prospers in every soil, are often used in place of the tall jamb-rosa to form alleys leading up to the house of the planter, and also the princ.i.p.al walks in his garden; the waving bamboo, whose numberless uses are well known, is planted by the sides of the rivers and ca.n.a.ls.

A notion of the working and produce of a plantation at Vacouas will be most concisely given by a statement of the ordinary expenses and returns; and to render it more nearly applicable to the case of such persons in Europe as might form the project of becoming settlers, I will suppose a young man, with his wife and child, arrived at Mauritius with the intention of employing his time and means on a plantation in this district; and at the end of five years other affairs call him thence, and he sells every thing. He is supposed to possess 18,000 dollars in money or property, to be active, industrious, and frugal, and though unacquainted with the business of a planter, to be sufficiently intelligent to gain the necessary information in one year. With these requisites, I would examine whether he will have been able to subsist his family comfortably during the five years, and what will then be the state of his funds.

EXPENSES. Dollars.

In town the first year, 1,800 Price of an uncleared habitation, 3,000 Twenty negroes, some being mechanics, 4,000 Ten negresses, 1,500 Ten children of different ages, 1,000 Maize 500 lbs. (7 D.), sweet potatoes 1250 lbs. (3 D.) to subsist each slave the first year, 450

Head tax for 5 years, at .1 D. each per an. 100 Maroon tax for ditto 100 Surgeon to attend the slaves, 200 Building and furnishing a house, magazine, etc., exclusive of wood and labourers from the plantation, 2,500 Agricultural utensils, hand mills, etc. 300 100 fowls and 50 ducks for a breed, 100 Ten goats, 60 Ten pigs, 100 A horse, saddle, etc. 250 A good a.s.s, side saddle, etc. 120 Seeds and fruit trees, 50 Coffee plants 30,000 for 20 acres, 450 Expenses at the plantation in 4 years, exclusive of domestic supplies, 3,600 Losses from two hurricanes, 2,000 ------ Total 21,680

RECEIPTS. Dollars.

Of 60 acres cleared to raise provisions, 30 are necessary to support the slaves; from the rest may be sold 150,000 lbs.

of maize in 4 years, for 2,250 Ebony, timber, planks and shingles, sold on the spot during 5 years, 3,000 Coffee reaped on the 5th year, 50 bales (100 lbs. each) at 15 D. per bale, 750 Vegetables and fruit sold at the bazar, aver age 2 D. per day, during four years, 2,920 Fowls and ducks 2000 at D. 1,000 Thirty goats sold, 180 Thirty hogs, 600 At the end of 5 years, the plantation, buildings, etc., will probably bring, 7,000 Probable value of the slaves, 5,500 Pigs, goats, and poultry remaining, 260 Horse, a.s.s, etc. probably not more than 200 ------ Whole receipts 23,660 Expenses and losses 21,680 ------ Increase 1,980

The taxes and price of provisions, coffee, etc. in the above calculation, are taken as they usually stood in time of war, under the government of general De Caen; and every thing is taken against, rather than in favour of the planter. In his expenses a sufficiency is allowed to live comfortably, to see his friends at times, and something for the pleasure of himself and wife; but if he choose to be very economical, 2000 dollars might be saved from the sums allotted.

In selling his plantation at the end of five years, he is in a great measure losing the fruit of his labour; for the coffee alone might be reasonably expected to produce annually one hundred bales for the following ten years, and make his revenue exceed 3000 dollars per annum; and if he continued to live economically upon the plantation, this, with the rising interest of his surplus money, would double his property in a short time. It is therefore better, supposing a man to possess the requisite knowledge, to purchase a habitation already established, than to commence upon a new one.

The same person going to Vaucouas with the intention of quitting it at the end of five years, would not plant coffee, but turn his attention to providing different kinds of wood and sending it to Port Louis. With this object princ.i.p.ally in view, he would purchase two habitations instead of one; and as this and other expenses incident to the new arrangement would require a greater sum than he is supposed to possess, he must borrow, at high interest, what is necessary to make up the deficiency. The amount of his receipts and expenses for the five years. would then be nearly as follows.

EXPENSES. Dollars.

As before, deducting coffee plants, 21,230 An additional habitation, 3,000 Twenty a.s.ses, at 90 D. each, 1,800 Harnesses for three teams, 300 Three waggons built on the plantation, 150 Three additional slaves, 600 Interest of 6,000 dollars borrowed for three years, at 18 per cent. per an. 3,240 ------ Total 30,320 Total receipts 41,922 ------ Increase 11,602

RECEIPTS. Dollars.

As before, deducting wood, coffee, plantation and buildings, 12,910 Trimmed ebony sent to the town 375, 6000 lbs. at 2 D. per 100, 7,512 Timber sent to Port Louis in 4 years, 640 loads at 25 D. each, 16,000 Two habitations stripped of the best wood may sell for, with buildings, 4,000 a.s.ses and additional slaves, 1,500 ------ Total 41,922

These statements will give a general idea of a plantation at Vacouas, the employments of the more considerable inhabitants, of the food of the slaves, etc., and will render unnecessary any further explanation on these heads.

It was considered a fair estimate, that a habitation should give yearly 20 per cent. on the capital employed, after allowance made for all common losses; and money placed on good security obtained from 9 to 18 per cent.

in time of war, and 12 to 24 in the preceding peace. Had my planter put his 18,000 dollars out at interest, instead of employing them on a plantation at Vacouas, and been able to obtain 15 per cent, he would at the end of five years, after expending 150 dollars each month in the town of Port Louis, have increased his capital nearly 5,000 dollars; but it is more than probable that he would have fallen into the luxury of the place, and have rather diminished than increased his fortune.

The woods of Vacouas are exceedingly thick, and so interwoven with different kinds of climbing plants, that it is difficult to force a pa.s.sage through; and to take a ride where no roads have been cut, is as impossible as to take a flight in the air. Except mora.s.ses and the borders of lakes, I did not see a s.p.a.ce of five square yards in these woods, which was covered with gra.s.s and unenc.u.mbered with shrubs or trees; even the paths not much frequented, if not impa.s.sable, are rendered very embarra.s.sing by the raspberries, wild tobacco, and other shrubs with which they are quickly overgrown. Cleared lands which have ceased to be cultivated, are usually clothed with a strong, coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, called _chien-dent_, intermixed with ferns, wild tobacco, and other noxious weeds. In the low districts the gra.s.s is of a better kind, and supplies the cattle with tolerable food during three or four months that it is young and tender, and for most of the year in marshy places; at other times they are partly fed with maize straw, the refuse of the sugar mills, and the leaves and tender branches of some trees.

A few short-legged hares and some scattered partridges are found near the skirts of the plantations, and further in the woods there are some deer and wild hogs. Monkeys are more numerous, and when the maize is ripe they venture into the plantations to steal; which obliges the inhabitants to set a watch over the fields in the day, as the maroons and other thieves do at night. There are some wood pigeons and two species of doves, and the marshy places are frequented by a few water hens; but neither wild geese nor ducks are known in the island. Game of all kinds was at this time so little abundant in the woods of Vacouas, that even a creole, who is an intrepid hunter and a good shot, and can live where an European would starve, could not subsist himself and his dogs upon the produce of the chase. Before the revolution this was said to have been possible; but in that time of disorder the citizen mulattoes preferred hunting to work, and the woods were nearly depopulated of hares and deer.

Of indigenous fruits there are none worth notice, for that produced by the ebony scarcely deserves the name; a large, but almost tasteless raspberry is however now found every where by the road side, and citrons of two kinds grow in the woods. A small species of cabbage tree, called here _palmiste_, is not rare and is much esteemed; the undeveloped leaves at the head of the tree, when eaten raw, resemble in taste a walnut, and a cauliflower when boiled; dressed as a salad they are superior to perhaps any other, and make an excellent pickle. Upon the deserted plantations, peaches, guavas, pine apples, bananas, mulberries and strawberries are often left growing; these are considered to be the property of the first comer, and usually fall to the lot of the maroons, or to the slaves in the neighbourhood who watch their ripening; the wild bees also furnish them with an occasional regale of honey.

With respect to noxious insects, the scourge of most tropical countries, the wet and cold weather which renders Vacouas a disagreeable residence in the winter, is of singular advantage; the numerous musketoes and sand flies, the swarms of wasps, the ants, centipedes, scorpions, bugs and lizards, with which the lower parts of the island are more or less tormented, are almost unknown here; and fleas and c.o.c.kroaches are less numerous. A serpent is not known to exist in Mauritius, though several have been found on some of the neighbouring islets; it is therefore not the climate which destroys them, nor has it been ascertained what is the cause.*

[* Mauritius is not singular in being free of serpents whilst they exist on lands within sight, or not far off; but a late account says that one of great size has been killed on that island near the Reduit, supposed to have escaped out of a ship from India, wrecked on the coast a few years before.]

From this account of the situation of my retreat, it will be perceived that it was a vast acquisition to exchange the Garden Prison for Vacouas; there, it had been too warm to take exercise, except in the mornings and evenings, had there been room and inducements; whilst at the Refuge I was obliged to clothe in woollen, had s.p.a.ce to range in, and a variety of interesting objects, with the charm of novelty to keep me in continual motion. I bathed frequently in the R. du Rempart, walked out every fine day, and in a few weeks my former health was in a great measure recovered. Those who can receive gratification from opening the door to an imprisoned bird, and remarking the joy with which it hops from spray to spray, tastes of every seed and sips from every rill, will readily conceive the sensations of a man during the first days of liberation from a long confinement.

CHAPTER VII.

Occupations at Vacouas.

Hospitality of the inhabitants.

Letters from England.

Refusal to be sent to France repeated.

Account of two hurricanes, of a subterraneous stream and circular pit.