Inclining to our right was the port and town of St. Louis. To the south
were large plains, in rich vegetation, divided by a fine river, with one
solitary hill. To the north were other plains, inclining to the sea, white
as if the briny waters had recently receded from them, and only partially
cultivated with sugar-canes, indigo, and in the marshy spots, with rice.
From south to east it was volcanic and mountainous, with jungle and
ancient forests. The north-east was, for the most part, level. The plain,
where we were, was full of little sheets of deep water, forming themselves
into pretty lakes; which, overflowing during the heavy rains, at times
made the plain swampy, and ever overgrown with canes, reeds, and gigantic
grass. Such was the diversified and beautiful scenery now disclosed, as
the sun, having risen above the mountain in the east, dissipated the
yellow mists, and laid bare the hitherto obscured beauties of this divine
island, like a virgin unrobed for bathing."

"We alighted under the shade of a group of the rose-apple trees, which
seemed to have drawn a charmed circle round a solitary oak, on the brink
of a lake, clear as a diamond, and apparently of amazing depth, the golden
Chinese fish sporting on its surface, and green, yellow, and blue
dragon-flies darting here and there above it. The modest wood-pigeon and
dove, disturbed in their morning ablutions, flew away to the woods. The
gray partridge ran into the vacour, which stood in thick lines on the
brink, impenetrable from its long fibrous leaves, standing out like a
phalanx of lances. The water-hens dived, and the parrots chattered on the
trees, as if they had been peopled with scolding married women; whilst the
sluggish baboon sat, with portly belly, gormandizing with the voracity and
gravity of a monk, regardless of all but the stuffing of his insatiable
maw with bananas."

"We were told that there were, in this lake, prawns as big as lobsters,