Connected with the Home is a floating bethel, moored close by the landing stair.
Another feature of the city is the park. Some of our boys from the rural districts having visited it, and found several fountains on its grounds, gave so animated a description of its beauties as made me eager to visit it. I went, saw, and was neither overwhelmed by astonishment nor pleasure; the walks were well enough, so were the fountains, but the trees appeared uncared for; and the grass, what little there was, was parched by the heat of the sun to a straw color. This park was about two hundred feet in width, and several hundred yards in length. The peculiar attraction of this place is that it is the resort of the children of the European residents, and from their presence one argues the existence of white women in the neighborhood; but where they seclude themselves I cannot perceive, for if the very small number of white ladies whom I saw in Mauritius were the maternal relatives of all the children I saw in the park, verily the climate of Port Louis must conduce greatly to the fecundity of our race.
Occasionally, in the park, may be seen a Miss who has discarded pantalettes, and, when seen, her rosy cheeks and white transparent skin contrast so favorably with the universal yellow and brown hues of the East Indian dames, that one could almost and without any great expansion of the imagination, think her an angel from the ethereal regions sent to illuminate the dusky scene.
A few miles from the landing is a cemetery, which I visited. The road to it embraces a beautiful walk or drive through a long shaded avenue formed by rows of cypress trees; the cemetery is laid out in the form of a square, and is well filled with monuments, the styles and workmanship of which would do no discredit to Laurel Hill or Greenwood. Most of them bore inscriptions in French, several were devoted to the last remains of English naval commanders who had died whilst on this station. Over the remains of one of these, a comparatively young man, was erected the base of a column, a few feet above which the column was fractured, signifying that the deceased was cut down by the fell destroyer in the spring tide of life, and ere he had arrived at the goal to which his talents would have conducted him.
One beautiful tribute to the memory of the departed prevails—on each tomb is a vase containing flowers, which, from their fragrance and freshness, were apparently renewed by no niggard hand. This beautiful custom reminded me of the oft-repeated wish of the old man in the best of Dickens’ Christmas Stories, “Lord, keep my memory green.” On my way back from the cemetery, I came in contact with a crowd of Malabars, whom an old woman was haranguing from a rostrum consisting of a large stone, in the most approved manner of stump speaking. She was in a state of semi-intoxication, yet her auditory yielded her implicit attention. Not understanding a single word that she uttered, and being unable to obtain an explanation of the scene, I was on the point of withdrawing, when her change of manner, from a state of ecstacy to that of frantic despair, led me to approach the house to which she was continually pointing during her oratorical effort. In the house I saw a rude pine coffin, around which the relatives and friends were collected, all half-drunk and pugilistically inclined, arguing some point with much vehemence. Disgusted with the affair I withdrew, thinking I had witnessed as serio-comic a scene as the wake of Teddy the Tiler.
In my walk up to the residence of the American consul, I saw the barracks of the soldiery, and heard the performance of their excellent brass band. The consul’s residence is about a mile and a half from the landing. It, with the other buildings in its neighborhood, are built in cottage style, and present the best appearance of any in the port. The consul is a New Yorker named Fairfield.
The few white inhabitants engaged in business are mostly in the wholesale branches of trade; the other positions which the whites fill are the police bodies, and the plying of boats to and from the wharves and shipping. This police body is the richest farce, in regard to the preservation of law and order, that ever was endorsed by the city fathers of any municipality under the sun. The force consists of two bodies—the Government and municipal police—the former body, or at least that part of it on duty in Port Louis, contains three hundred men, two-thirds of them being whites; this proportion is made up entirely of seamen, French, English, American, and German—the Government, eager to have a white police force, accepts all who offer to enlist for a term of from one to three years, providing they possess a certified discharge from the vessels in which they have last served.
It may be better imagined than described how a body of men, composed of such reckless material, would conduct themselves; they create more disturbance by far than those under their surveillance; and it is not unusual for them, at the close of the month, to be mulcted in the greater part of their wages—retained by the authorities as fines for disorderly conduct.
They receive four pounds sterling per month, and live in barracks resembling those of the soldiery; those who are married are allowed to live where they please. Their uniform is duck trowsers, a jacket of blue cloth reaching to the hips, and closing tightly with brass buttons, each displaying the crown, and a blue cap, the top of which is of white glazed oil skin—this cap is also surmounted with a crown; in the hand, day and night, is carried a baton, beautifully ornamented with Chinese characters.
We were much surprised to find in the police force a number of Americans who had deserted from whalers, and whom we had seen before in the eastern ports of the Indian Ocean; amongst these were several of the Elisha Dunbar’s crew. One of them, a Bostonian, had been promoted to be sergeant, and was living with a great, greasy, disgusting-looking squaw, as black as the ace of spades, thereby carrying out the doctrine of amalgamation to its fullest extent.