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 onlv 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 

 a mural front to the sea, and fenced against the waves by 

 the immense fragments, which, detached successively from 

 its face, have rolled into the deep. Let us suppose a 

 mountain formed by a series of volcanic eruptions, consist- 

 ing, at one time, of lava in a state of perfect fusion, and 

 disposed 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 

 intervention of a more fusible vehicle. Let us suppose these 

 eruptions repeated for ages ; each successive stream filling 



VOL. II. y 



