time and afterwards, I have frequently visited, give abundant indications
that nature has here scattered her riches with no stinting hand. Nothing
seems wanting but knowledge to place this magnificent island in the
foremost rank of great and powerful empires. When I was there, the line,
distinguishing the man from the animal, was hardly visible."

_The Mauritius_.

"It is worthy of remark that, regarding climate, this island has a
peculiarity I never remember to have found in any other in India. Other
islands are comparatively cool and pleasant on the coasts, and close and
unhealthy in the interior, unless on the heights. Here it is reversed: the
entire coast is so scorchingly hot, and the air so bad, that at Port
St. Louis, and other places round, no one dares venture out in the daytime
during six months of the year, as he may be almost certain of having a
sun-stroke, which occasions a brain-fever, the malignant fever, cholera
morbus, or dysentery; while, at the same period, in the interior,
particularly on the windward side, the air is temperate and salubrious.
For six months in the year, from November to April, the town of St. Louis
is insufferably and noxiously hot; scarcely any one but the slaves could
be induced to remain there, the free inhabitants departing for the
interior. Then again, the dry months at Port St. Louis are the rainy ones
in the central parts; and, whilst the fiercest hurricanes are raging on
the coast, a few miles in-land all is calm and sunshine. I have repeatedly
witnessed this; and it is strange in so small an island."

"De Ruyter now came up, and we suddenly stood on the elevated plain,
called Vacois, in the centre of the island. Our ascent had been very
abrupt, winding, and rugged. Before us, in the middle of the plain, on
which we now rode, was the pyramidical mountain, _Piton du Milieu_.