“At Sea, March 16th, 1871.
“My Dear ——: In my letter to you from Mauritius, which I suppose you will have long ago received, you saw that I was much disappointed by not getting on shore through the quarantine regulations, which are very strictly carried out. Round about Mauritius there are several islands, viz., Flat Island, where a quarantine station is, Round Island, where a light-house stands 365 feet above the level of the sea, behind these Sugar Loaf Island, which rises with precipitous cliffs, and is merely a bare rock, also the Islôt Gabriel. In sailing without steam, vessels come to Port Louis at the windward side (east) of the island, and sail in a kind of channel between these islands and the mainland, as I will call it. We sighted the south corner of Mauritius about 4 P. M., but kept off until daybreak next morning (Saturday) when we made for our anchorage at the Bell buoy about three-quarters of a mile from the shore. The coasting round the island which we made was very pleasant. It was a beautiful sunshiny morning, with a gentle eight knots an hour breeze. We passed the Gunner’s Quoin, near which the English landed when they took the island from the French, Nov. 29th, 1810, and very close to it we went, within a stone’s throw. It is a large bluff which juts out with perpendicular cliffs all around. The water is deep enough, but it would be a frightful place to run against in the night. After rounding this headland we stood closer in, and got pretty views of the island, and the district of Pamplemouse, the background being closed in by the lofty mountains, of which the Pieter Botte forms one of the principal features, towering 2,676 feet above the sea like a Titanic obelisk. We could see the green fields where ‘de sugar cane grows,’ the mills with their smoky chimneys, the houses of the planters, with their steep thatched roofs, beautiful verandahs and grassy lawns, well cut and kept, running down in some places to the beach. As I gazed I pictured to myself the poor groaning coolies, doomed to sweat in the mills and to toil painfully in the fields; yet this even was a far easier task than to conceive how the ‘Reaper, whose name is Death,’ who during the last few years has been stalking through this island,[[17]] could ever have used his sickle so keenly in such a pleasant place. We were soon at Port Louis, passing by a barque from Newcastle, N. S. W., and anchored just opposite a fort bristling with guns, over which the Union Jack, ‘The flag that’s braved a thousand years, the battle and the breeze,’ was proudly flying.
“‘From Hull, Hell and Halifax, “Good Lord deliver us,”’ the thieves in the good old days used to devoutly pray. If they could have had my experience their litany would have been ‘From all sailing ships, coolie ships and Scotch ships, “Spare us good Lord.”’ The captain of this ship is a Scotchman, his mate is Scotch too. The former seems impressed with the idea that every one he comes in contact with has a design upon him, and he is also morbidly impressed with the pleasing delusion that all government officers are his servants, paid to wait on him. I can here see and learn to my cost how to save money. The flour we are using is quite sour, but still the cask must be finished before another is opened; the potatoes are old and unfit to eat; the salt beef is salt indeed, and the tongues are positively rotten—so that to eat them is an impossibility—but when drowned in vinegar and encased in mustard it is wonderful what an active imagination might not fancy them to be. The butter is rancid; the tin soups splendid emetics; the biscuit so hard that my poor teeth refuse to do duty; the water so putrid that I find it advisable to hold my nose and gulp it down. This style of living has considerably reduced me, but I don’t grumble, as I see it would be useless, I rather chuckle internally. The mate is a young, pig-headed, uncouth block of humanity, that wants licking into shape with a cat-o’-nine tails, his principal delight consists in calling those under him very pet names indeed. The second mate is a decent fellow, young, a colonial, born in Tobago.
“We found we should have to remain three days before permission would be given us to go on shore, so we got some water off under quarantine regulations, having an officer in a boat sailing round and round us continually at a distance of 200 yards, to see that no one had any communication with us. With a glass we could see into portions of Port Louis. This town lies at the foot of an amphitheatre of hills, and seems quietly nestled under their protecting wings. On the one side of the town lies the fort, with earthworks for defence, on the other is the quarter inhabited by the black population, thousands of whose little shanties we could see, built on the slope of the hill, and surrounded with trees. Further on we had pointed out to us the railway company’s works and the railway, with a fine viaduct crossing a deep ravine. The Pieter Botte mountain, though not the highest in the island, is very conspicuous. We weighed anchor at 10:30 P. M., and got at last fair away for India. One event has occurred to break the monotony of our journey, viz., the death of an old coolie woman. Her body was committed to the deep without any religious ceremony the morning after her decease, so that now, instead of
“‘Shaking on her restless pillow,
Her head heaves with the heaving billow;
and will continue to do so, I think, until the sea is called upon to deliver up its dead, as we buried her in about 1,600 to 2,000 fathoms of water, the bottom of which I do not suppose she will ever reach. She has one son on board, who takes the matter very calmly, Mahomed in the Koran giving good hopes of the future bliss of the faithful, of which she, I am sure, was one, praying devoutly every morning with her face turned to Mecca. In fact, these people would put to shame thousands of Europeans in the way they observe their religious rites. Going along the deck at sunrise, I can see some with their faces turned to Mecca, others worshipping the sun, looking intently at it, and returning thanks that they are permitted to see his glorious light once more, others calling on the beneficent deity, Vishnu, whereas I am afraid those who ought to know better omit to do anything of the sort.
“March 27th.—Since writing last we have had three more deaths—a man, a woman and a child. Before they were committed to the deep they were neatly sewn up in long canvas bags. The man, when he was put overboard, seemed unwilling to leave us. He got caught on a chain level with the waves, and at the speed we were going, with his back bent tightly across it, he stuck for a long time, it seeming impossible to shake him off! The poor woman was a Christian, and my Roman Catholic friend came to the front in full force. It was quite refreshing to see the energy he exhibited and the gusto with which he repeated his prayers and told his beads. He evidently seemed to appreciate the opportunity which providence had afforded him of showing his peculiar powers. I do not know whether you have seen any one buried at sea, but on me the peculiar, solemn plash which the body gives when it touches the water, has even a more impressive effect than when the earth thrown on a coffin-lid rattles a doleful accompaniment to the refrain, ‘ashes to ashes and dust to dust.’
“31st.—Weather is still continuing very calm. The coolies yesterday determined to make a grand offering to the Deity. All shades of religious opinions merged their differences, Mussulmen, Brahmins, Christians, all contributing something to propitiate the Almighty Power which ‘unseen they feel.’ You may laugh, but I also contributed, when after a prayer to Allah and his prophet Mahomed, we all shouted a grand ‘Hurrah!’—an unanimous shout it was. After this the money offering was tied up in a bag and fastened to the top of the mainmast, in ‘sure and certain hope’ of a fair wind resulting. Strange to say, such has followed, and this morning we are bowling along at ten knots an hour.