Passing through the closely packed lines of shipping, and landing as a stranger at Port Louis, perhaps the first thing to engage attention is the strange mixture of nations--representatives, he might at first be inclined to imagine, of half the countries of the earth. He stares at a Coolie from Madras with a breech-cloth and soldier's jacket, or a stately, bearded Moor, striking a bargain with a Parsee merchant; a Chinaman, with two bundles slung on a bamboo, hurries past, jostling a group of young Creole exquisites smoking their cheroots at a corner, and talking of last night's Norma, or the programme of the evening's performance at the Hippodrome in the Champ de Mars; his eye next catches a couple of sailors reeling out of a grog-shop, to the amusement of a group of laughing negresses in white muslin dresses of the latest Parisian fashion, contrasting strongly with a modestly attired Cingalese woman, and an Indian ayah with her young charge. Amidst all this the French language prevails; everything more or less pertains of the French character, and an Englishman can scarcely believe that he is in one of the colonies of his own country.
VISIT TO PAMPLEMOUSSES.
May 16th.
Few passing visitors, like ourselves, leave the Isle of France without performing a pilgrimage to Pamplemousses, a pretty village seven miles distant, near which are the (so-called) tombs of Paul and Virginia, and the Botanic Gardens. For this purpose--as we sail the day after tomorrow, I started at daylight. The road, even at this early hour, was crowded with people--Coolies, Chinamen, Negroes, and others, bringing in their produce to market, while every now and then a carriage passed by filled with well-dressed Creoles enjoying the coolness of the morning air, or bent upon making a holiday of it, for the day was Sunday. I breakfasted in one of the numerous cabarets by the roadside, dignified with the name of Hotel de ----, etc. Numerous small streams crossed the road, and the country, so far as seen, exhibited a refreshing greenness and richness of vegetation.
Les Tombeaux are situated in a garden surrounded by trees, and a grove of coffee plants, behind the residence of a gentleman who must be heartily sick of being so constantly disturbed by strangers. They exhibit nothing more remarkable than two dilapidated monumental urns on opposite sides of the garden, shaded by a clump of bamboos and casuarinas, the latter usually mistaken for cypresses. In the coffee plantation close by, I was delighted to find great numbers of a large and handsome land shell, Achatina mauritiana--it burrows in the earth during dry weather, but some rain which had fallen during the night brought it out in abundance.
BOTANICAL GARDENS.
The Botanical Gardens are close to the church. Among the plants are some magnificent sago palms, almost rivalling those I had seen in New Guinea, during the voyage of the Fly,* and many clove and nutmeg trees, the cultivation of which in the island it had been the intention of Government to introduce. Here are some very fine shady walks with ponds of water and rivulets, but although these cool retreats are admirably adapted for solitary rambles and the holding of merry picnic parties, I found with regret that the title of botanical had misled me.
On my return I was not surprised to see in an island colonised by the French--so little outward respect paid to the Sabbath. Many people were at work in the fields, and washerwomen in the streams--a party of Chinamen were employed roofing a house, and blacksmiths hammered away within gun-shot of the church, while many of the shops and all the taverns were open in the villages.
(*Footnote. Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.S. Fly in Torres Strait, New Guinea, and other Islands of the Asiatic Archipelago by J. Beete Jukes.)
LA POUCE MOUNTAIN.