In the daytime, as I now see it for the first time, Port Louis is indeed a crowded and busy place, and its low-pitched warehouses and unpretending-looking buildings hold many and many thousand tons of miscellaneous merchandise coming in or going out. But at sunset an exodus of all the white and most of the creole inhabitants sets in, leaving the dusty streets and dingy buildings to watchmen and coolies and dogs. It is quite curious to notice, as I do directly, what a horror the English residents have of sleeping even one single night in Port Louis; and this dread certainly appears to be well founded if even half the stories one hears be true. Some half dozen officials, whose duties oblige them to be always close to the harbor, contrive, however, to live in the town, but they nearly all give a melancholy report of the constant attacks of fever they or their families suffer from.
Certainly, at the first glance, Port Louis is not a prepossessing place to live, or try to live, in. I will say nothing of the shabby shops, the dilapidated-looking dwellings, one passes in a rapid drive through the streets, because I know how deceitful outside appearances are as to the internal resources or comforts of a tropical town. Those dingy shops may hold excellent though miscellaneous goods in their dark recesses, and would be absolutely unbearable to either owner or customer if they were lighted with staring plate-glass windows. Nor would it be possible to array tempting articles in gallant order behind so hot and glaring a screen, for no shade or canvas would prevent everything from bleaching white in a few hours. As for the peeled walls of house and garden, no stucco or paint can stand many weeks of tropical sun and showers. Everything gets to look blistered or washed out directly after it has been renovated, and great allowances must be made for these shortcomings so patent to the eye of a fresh visitor. What I most regretted in Port Louis was its low-lying, fever-haunted situation. It looks marked out as a hotbed of disease, and the wonder to me is, not that it should now and for ten years past have the character of being a nest for breeding fevers, but that there ever should have been a time when illness was not rife in such a locality. Sheltered from anything like a free circulation of air by hills rising abruptly from the seashore, swampy by nature, crowded to excess by thousands of emigrants from all parts of the coast added to its own swarming population, it seems little short of marvellous that even by day Europeans can contrive to exist there long enough to carry on the enormous trade which comes and goes to and from its harbor. Yet they do so, and on the whole manage very well by avoiding exposure to the sun and taking care to sleep out of the town. This is rendered possible to all by an admirable system of railways, which are under government control, and will gradually form a perfect network over the island. The engineering difficulties of these lines must have been great, and it is an appalling sight to witness a train in motion. So hilly is the little island that if the engine is approaching the chances are it looks as if it were about to plunge wildly down on its head and turn a somersault into the station, or else it seems to be gradually climbing up a steep gradient after the fashion of a fly on the wall. But everything appears well managed, and the dulness of the daily press is never enlivened by accounts of a railway accident.
For two or three miles out of Port Louis the country is still flat and marshy, and ugly to the last degree—not the ugliness of bareness and trim neatness, but overgrown, dank and mournful, for all its teeming life. By the roadside stand, here and there, what once were handsome and hospitable mansions, but are now abodes of desolation and decay. The same sad story may be told of each—how their owners, well-born descendants of old French families, flourished there, amid their beautiful flowers, in health and happiness for many a long day until the fatal "fever year" of 1867, when half the families were carried off by swift death, and the survivors wellnigh ruined by hurricanes and disasters of all sorts. Poor little Mauritius has certainly passed through some very hard times, but she has borne them bravely and pluckily, and is now reaping her reward in returning prosperity. Sharp as has been the lesson, it is something for her inhabitants to have learned to enforce better sanitary laws, and there is little fear now but that their eyes have been opened to the importance of health regulations.
One effect of the epidemic which desolated Port Louis has been the creation of the prettiest imaginable suburbs or settlements within eight or ten miles of the town. These districts have the quaintest French names—Beau Bassin, Curépipe, Pamplemousse, Flacq, Moka, and so forth, with the English name of "Racehill" standing out among them in cockney simplicity. My particular suburb is the nearest and most convenient from which F—— can compass his daily official duties, but I am not entitled to boast of an elevation of more than eight hundred feet. Still, there is an extraordinary difference in the temperature before we have climbed to even half that height, and we turn out of a green lane bordered by thick hedges of something exactly like English hawthorn into a wind-swept clearing on the borders of a deep ravine where stands a bungalow-looking dwelling rejoicing in the name of "The Oaks." It might much more appropriately have been called "The Palms," for I can't see an oak anywhere, whilst there are some lovely graceful trees with rustling giant leaves on the lawn; but I cannot look beyond the wide veranda, where Zulu Jack is waiting to welcome me with the old musical cry of "Jakasu-casa!" and my little five-o'clock tea-table arranged, just as I used to have it in Natal, on the shady side of the house. Yes, it is home at last, and very homelike and comfortable it all looks after the tossing, changing voyaging of the past two months, for I have come a long way round.
Beau Bassin, May 21st.
I feel as if I had lived here all my life, although it is really more unlike the ordinary English colony than it is possible to imagine; and yet (as the walrus said to the carpenter) this "is scarcely odd," because it is not an English colony at all. It is thoroughly and entirely French, and the very small part of the habits of the people which is not French is Indian. The result of more than a century of civilization, and of the teachings of many colonists, not counting the Portuguese discoverers early in the sixteenth century, is a mixed but very comfortable code of manners and customs. One has not here to struggle against the ignorance and incapacity of native servants. The clever, quick Indian has learned the polish and elegance of his French masters, and the first thing which struck me was the pretty manners of the native—or, as they are called, creole—inhabitants. Everybody has a "Bon soir!" or a "Salaam!" for us as we pass them in our twilight walks, and the manners of the domestic servants are full of attention and courtesy. Mauritius first belonged to the Dutch (for the Portuguese did not attempt to colonize it), who seem to have been bullied out of it by pirates and hurricanes, and who finally gave it up as a thankless task about the year 1700. A few years later the French, having a thriving colony next door at Bourbon, sent over a man-of-war and "annexed," unopposed, the pretty little island. But there were all sorts of difficulties to overcome in those early days, and it was not even found possible—from mismanagement of course—to make the place pay its own working expenses. Then came the war with England at the beginning of this century; and that made things worse, for of course we tried to get hold of it, and there were many sharp sea-fights off its lovely shores, until, after a gallant defence, a landing was effected by the English, who took possession of it somewhere about 1811. Still, it does not seem to have been of much use to them, for the French inhabitants naturally made difficulties and declined to take the oath of allegiance; so that it was not until the great settling-day—or rather year—of 1814, when Louis XVIII. "came to his own again" and definitively ceded Mauritius to the British, that we began to set to work, aided by the inhabitants with right good-will, to develop and make the most of its enormous natural resources.
I really believe Mauritius stands alone in the whole world for variety of scenery, of climate and of productions within the smallest imaginable space. It might be a continent looked at through reversed opera-glasses for the ambitious scale of its mountains, its ravines and its waterfalls. When once you leave the plains behind—it is all on such a toy scale that you do this in half an hour—you breathe mountain-air and look down deep gorges and cross wide, rushing rivers. Of course the sea is part of every view. If it is lost sight of for five minutes, there is nothing to do but go on a few yards and turn a corner to see it again, stretching wide and blue and beautiful out to the horizon. As for the length and breadth of the island representing its area, the idea is wildly wrong. The acreage is enormous in proportion to this same illusory length and breadth, which very soon fades out of the newcomer's mind. One confusing effect of the hilly nature of the ground is that one dwarfs the relative length of distances, and gets to talk of five miles as a long way off. At first I used to say—rather impertinently, I confess—"Surely nothing can be very far away here!" but I have learned better already in this short month, and recognize that even three miles constitute something of a drive. And the chances are—nay, the certainty is—that three miles in any direction will show you a greater variety of beautiful scenery than the same distance over any other part of the habitable globe. The only expression I can find to describe Mauritius to myself is one I used to hear my grandmother use in speaking of a pretty girl who chanced to be rather petite. "She is a pocket Venus," the old lady would say; and so I find myself calling L'Ile Maurice a pocket Venus among islets.
This is the beginning of the cool season, which lasts till November; and really the climate just now is very delightful. A little too windy, perhaps, for my individual taste, but that is owing to the rather exposed situation of my house. The trade winds sweep in from the south-east, and very nearly blow me and my possessions out of the drawing-room. Still, it would be the height of ingratitude to quarrel with such a healthy, refreshing gale, and I try to avoid the remorse which I am assured will overtake me in the hot season if I grumble now. Of course it is hot in the sun, but ladies need seldom or never expose themselves to it. The gentlemen are armed, when they go out, with white umbrellas, and keep as much as possible out of the fierce heat. At night it is quite cold, and one or even two blankets are indispensable; yet this is by no means one of the coolest situations in the island, though it bears an excellent character for healthiness. Of course I can only tell you this time of what lies immediately around me, for I have hardly strayed five miles from my own door since I arrived. There is always so much to do in settling one's self in a new home. This time, I am bound to say, the difficulties have been reduced to a minimum, not only from the prompt kindness and helpfulness of my charming neighbors, but because I found excellent servants ready to my hand, instead of needing to go through the laborious process of training them. The cooks are very good—better indeed than the food material, which is not always of the best quality. The beef is imported from Madagascar, and is thin and queerly butchered, but presents itself at table in a sufficiently attractive form: so do the long-legged fowls of the island. But the object of distrust is always the mutton, which is more often goat, and consequently tough and rank: when it is only kid one can manage it, but the older animal is beyond me. Vegetables and fruit are abundant and delicious, and I have tasted very nice fish, though they do not seem plentiful. Nor is the actual cost of living great for what is technically called "bazaar"—i.e., home-grown—articles of daily food. Indeed, such things are cheap, and a few rupees go a long way in "bazaar." The moment you come to articles de luxe from England or France, then, indeed, you must reckon in dollars, or even piastres, for it sounds too overwhelming in rupees. Wine is the exception which proves the rule in this case, and every one drinks an excellent, wholesome light claret which is absurdly and delightfully cheap, and which comes straight from Bordeaux. Ribbons, clothes, boots and gloves, all things of that sort, are also expensive, but not unreasonably so when the enormous cost of carriage is taken into account. Everything comes by the only direct line of communication with England, in the "Messageries Maritimes," which is a swift but costly mode of transmission. Still, all actual necessaries are cheap and plentiful in spite of the teeming population one sees everywhere.
In our daily evening walk we cut off a corner through the bazaar, and it is most amusing to see and hear the representatives of all the countries of the East laughing, jangling and chatting in their own tongues, and apparently all at once. Besides Indians from each presidency, there are crowds of Chinese, Cingalese, Malabars, Malagask, superadded to the creole population. They seem orderly enough, though perhaps the police reports could tell a different tale. If only the daylight would last longer in these latitudes, where exercise is only possible after sundown! However early we set forth, the end of the walk is sure to be accomplished stumblingly in profound darkness. Happily, there are no snakes or poisonous reptiles of any sort, nor have I yet seen anything more personally objectionable than a mosquito. I rather owe a grudge, though, to a little insect called the mason-fly, which has a perfect passion for running up mud huts (compared to its larger edifices on the walls and ceiling) on my blotting-books and between the leaves of my pet volumes. The white ants are the worst insect foe we have, and the stories I hear of their performances would do credit to the Arabian Nights. I have already learned to consider as pets the little soft brown lizards which emerge from behind the picture-frames at night as soon as ever the lamps are lit. They come out to catch the flies on the ceiling, and stalk their prey in the cleverest and stealthiest fashion. Occasionally, however, they quarrel with each other, and have terrific combats over head, with the invariable result of a wriggling inch of tail dropping down on one's book or paper. This cool weather is of course the time when one is freest from insect visitors, and I have not yet seen any butterflies. A stray grasshopper, with green wings folded exactly like a large leaf, or an inquisitive mantis, blunders on to my writing-table occasionally, but not often enough to be anything but welcome. As my sitting-room may be said, speaking architecturally, to consist merely of a floor and ceiling, there is no reason why all the insects in the island should not come in at any one of its seven open doors (I have no windows) if they choose.
The houses are very pretty, however, in spite of their being all doorway. The polished floors—unhappily, mine are painted red, which is a great sorrow to me—the large rooms, with nice furniture and a wealth of flowers, give a look of great comfort and elegance to the interior. The wide, low verandas are shaded on the sunny side by screens or blinds of ratan painted green, and from the ceiling dangle baskets, large baskets, filled with every imaginable variety of fern. I never saw anything like the beauty of the foliage. The leaves of the plants would give color and variety enough without the flowers, and they too are in profusion. Every house stands in its own grounds, and I think I may say that every house has a beautiful shrubbery and garden attached to it. Of course, with all this warm rain constantly falling, the pruning-knife is as much needed as the spade, but the natives make excellent and clever gardeners, and every place is well and neatly kept. Mine is the only overgrown and yet empty garden I have seen, but, all the same, I have more flowers in my drawing-room than any one else, for all my neighbors take compassion on me and send me baskets full of the loveliest roses every morning. Then it is only necessary to send old Bonhomme, the gardener, a little way down the steep side of the ravine to pick as much maiden-hair or other delicate ferns as would stock the market at Covent Garden for a week.