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. (7½ D.), sweet potatoes
1250 lbs. (3¾ 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 ass, 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 ½ 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, ass, 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 principally 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 asses, 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
Asses 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 passage through; and to take a ride where no roads have been cut, is as impossible as to take a flight in the air. Except morasses and the borders of lakes, I did not see a space of five square yards in these woods, which was covered with grass and unencumbered with shrubs or trees; even the paths not much frequented, if not impassable, are rendered very embarrassing 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, coarse grass, called chien-dent, intermixed with ferns, wild tobacco, and other noxious weeds. In the low districts the grass 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.