With the surplus revenue of this colony, for more than twenty years of almost uninterrupted prosperity, one is surprised to find no great buildings, the general mark of social progress. In all the Roman colonies these marks of their ameliorating influence were found; but here, as in many other British colonies, there are no monuments to mark the dominion of a mighty nation. People at the Mauritius appear bent upon making money, and then returning to Europe—few looking upon it as their abiding place.
The island keeps pace with modern improvements, in machinery especially; and preparations are making for the establishment of a railway, which will lead to the further development of this fruitful little island.
The hotels are the worst managed establishments I have ever seen; firstly, because the proprietors are all above their business, driving in equipages which outvie those of the Governor and principal planters; and, secondly, because the law between employer and employed is not sufficiently binding, and consequently the hotel proprietors have no control over their servants.
In the Hôtel d’Europe, I have known every one in the house waiting for breakfast, while all the waiters were employed in polishing up the harness for the horses of the splendid carriage of the proprietor, which bore on the panel the armorial bearings of a noble English family, without the bend of bastardy, to which the owner was alone entitled; while, surmounting the arms, there was the representation of a cockatoo fluttering, with a ribbon in its mouth, on which was the royal motto, “Dieu et mon droit!”
On another occasion, wishing to have breakfast previous to going to church on Sunday morning, the boarders in this hotel requested to know the cause of delay, and they were told that a party of gentlemen were engaged in breakfasting in the public room, and that the boarders who supported the house could not breakfast until the gentlemen had finished. In company with a naval friend, I ventured to intrude on the privacy of the strangers, when we were presented with the sight of the German brass band—they, their wives, and their little ones—belonging to this fashionable hotel, at breakfast. Being a traveller, and from time to time seeing various strange scenes, I observed to my friend that this was doubtless “the custom of the country.” To which he replied that in that little island “trumpeters evidently came before travellers.” Remonstrance was quite useless; so, after the Germans had finished their “sauer-kraut,” we, who supported them, were allowed to eat off the same table.
After the excitement of arriving at Port Louis had somewhat worn off, my wife and myself were very ill, and confined to our room, with low nervous fever from the effects of the Mozambique affair. During this time we should certainly have fared very badly, if it had not been for the widow of a naval officer and her daughter, Mrs. Russell, who were unremitting in their kind attentions to us—even bringing nice nourishing soup from their own house for us, it being quite impossible to obtain anything, even a drop of water when one was sick, from those in the hotel, although we were paying very handsomely.
The whole of the first floor was originally intended for a large ball-room; and so as not to interfere with this design (for which it is sometimes required, when the guests have to go without beds), it is partitioned off into small apartments, barely large enough to hold a small iron bed and wash-hand stand. The wooden partitions dividing these spaces into apartments are about ten feet in height, there being a space between them and the ceiling of some six or seven feet—so that one may hear everything going on over the whole floor. In fact, the wooden partitions simply acted as screens to divide one bed from the other.