Copyright.]
[See [page 41].
Copyright.]
[See [page 56].
Before we turn towards India we have yet another island to visit, an island connected not with the new, but with the old route to the East. This is Mauritius, lying east of Madagascar and well out in the Indian Ocean, about two thousand four hundred miles from Aden and rather less from Ceylon. We shall find it very different from Zanzibar. A French patois is the language commonly spoken; most of the names on the map are French, and the statue of a great Frenchman 38 is one of the first things which we notice on landing at Port Louis. Mauritius was in effect a purely French colony, when it became ours by conquest just a century ago; but the immigration from India is now modifying rapidly the French character of the island.
Before the French were the Dutch: they settled first in the southeast corner, as Grand Port was the last convenient point of call on the way from the Cape to Ceylon, before the long voyage across the open ocean. After a century of partial occupation, the Dutch retired in 1712, leaving behind them the name Mauritius, taken from that of Count Maurice of Nassau, the Stadtholder of Holland. The French, who were already in Madagascar and the neighbouring island of Bourbon, promptly occupied Mauritius, re-naming it Île de France. It was controlled by the French East-India Company and became in a few years very prosperous under the administration of Mahé de Labourdonnais. His name still survives in Mahébourg, and we have already seen his statue in Port Louis. During our war with France at the end of the century, Mauritius, owing to its position on the only route to India, was used as a base for attacking our commerce by the French privateers who swarmed in these seas; so that its capture became necessary for the security of our Indian possessions. Both Bourbon and Mauritius were taken, but the former was restored to France by the peace of 1814.
The island as we found it was a true French plantation-colony. The ruling classes were the Creole landowners, French by descent; while the actual work of the plantations was carried on by slaves imported from Africa. It is still thoroughly French, and the plantation system survives in a modified form as the sole support of the people; but the former importance of the island as a commercial and strategic centre has greatly declined with the opening of the Suez Canal. Mauritius is no longer on a great trade route, but it is well worth a visit in itself and is still closely connected with our final destination, India.
