321 
large pirogue, which carried us to Possession in a couple of 
hours. 
* Many of the mountains and rivers, as well as all the 
geographical divisions of this island, are named after some 
saint or other, male or female. Bourbon offers, in this 
respect, a curious contrast with the sister island, where we 
find no more notice taken of those holy personages, than if 
their names had never found a place in the kalendar. Had 
the imposition of names in Mauritius taken place during its 
occupation by the Hollanders, such a circumstance need 
excite no surprise. But this was by no means the case, all 
the names, with very few exceptions, are French; and yet, 
among the whole, I can only recollect one solitary saint, 
the apostle Peter, charged with the superintendence of a 
district. During the greater part of the last century, the 
French philosophers are alleged to have been actively 
employed, by means of their writings, in undermining the 
foundation of the national faith. The colonization of 
Mauritius commenced about that period, and long subse- 
quent to that of Bourbon: may we not attribute the circum- 
stance above-mentioned, in part at least, to a change 
effected in the meantime by the new philosophy, in the 
religious ideas of the people? Whatever may have been 
the cause, the fact itself, though unimportant, is rather 
Curious, : 
* The mountain between St. Denis and Possession, which 
has been named after St. Francis, terminates in a huge 
Promontory, several hundred fathoms in height, presenting 
à mural front to the sea, and fenced against the waves by 
the immense fragments, which, detached successively from . 
lts face, have rolled into the deep. Let us suppose a 
Mountain formed by a series of volcanic eruptions, consist- 
mg, at one time, of lava in a state of perfect fusion, and 
: isposed to consolidate either into one amorphous mass, or 
into distinct masses of a determinate figure; at another 
time, of solid or semi-fluid masses, borne along by the 
tervention of a more fusible vehicle. Let us suppose a = 
eruptions repeated for ages; each successive stream filling 
VOL, rr, Y 
