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 vmfortunate 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. Tlie only diseases from which the Europaeans 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 is 

 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 in our 

 possession, none of those supernatural and appalling signs 

 were remarked which are said to announce its approach. 

 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 liospitals, for the first 

 nine months at Port-Louis, the remainder at Mahebourg. 



