334 
permit the use of wheel-carriages, or even beasts of burden. 
The produce must therefore be carried to the market by 
slaves, at a prodigious expense of labour. For this purpose, 
it is put up in bags weighing about one cwt., and you will 
often see on the road to St. Denis, strings of fifty or sixty 
slaves, each with his bag, trotting along, and chanting a 
melancholy air, half song, half groan, to which each 
individual adapts his pace, according to his strength and the 
delicacy of his ear. This is by far the severest labour that 
falls to the lot of these unfortunate beings. 
* The Islands of Mauritius and Bourbon are justly famed 
for the wholesomeness of their climate. The heat, though 
considerable, is tempered by refreshing breezes; and its 
variations are so slight and regular, that we never experience 
those sudden transitions from one extreme to another, which, 
in other parts of the world, prove so trying to the constitu- 
tion. The only diseases from which the Europeans are liable 
to suffer, are such as spring from their own intemperance. 
Dysentery and inflammation of the liver, have, from this 
source, been peculiarly fatal to the British soldiers. 
* The uncommon salubrity of the air has been rather 
fancifully ascribed to the agency of the hurricane, which 1s 
supposed to sweep off, in its periodical visits, all noxious 
miasmata. But it does not appear that these islands are 
peculiarly subject to the visitations of this violent prophy- 
lactick ; at least, during the first four years they were incu 
possession, none of those supernatural and appalling signs 
were remarked which are said to announce its ap 
No season passed over, it is true, without one or two furious 
squalls of wind and rain, which made the regular tour of the 
compass; but they came on, and departed again, without 
any warning whatsoever. 
" The following Meteorological Table was extracted from 
a register kept in one of the military hospitals, for the first 
nine months at Port-Louis, the remainder at Mahébourg: 
