POPULATION OF MAURITIUS. 109 



Yams, cassava, Indian corn;, plantains, bananas, and melons are all cultivated as articles of 

 food, as well as some of our vegetables, as spinach, asparagus, artichokes, cabbage, and peas. 

 Wheat and rice are also produced, but in small quantities. Of fruits there are mangoes, 

 shaddocks, and pine apples ; but oranges, grapes, peaches, and apples are inferior. The 

 French introduced the spice trees of the Indian islands; none, however, succeeded but the clove. 

 The chief article of cultivation, since the British obtained possession, is sugar ; not more, 

 however, than three-eighths of the island is cultivated at all. The sugar cane is planted in the 

 usual manner, though the fields present one peculiarity. The surface of the ground, in its 

 original state, was covered with loose rocks and stones. These have been formed into parallel 

 ridges about three or four feet apart, and between these the cane is planted. The cultivators 

 are of opinion that these ridges, instead of being injurious to the cane, are rather advantageous ; 

 they retard the growth of weeds, shade and protect the young cane from violent winds, and 

 retain moisture which reaches the roots of the cane. 



Before the introduction of guano as a fertilizer the product was from 2,000 to 2,500 French 

 pounds of sugar to the arpent or French acre ; but the increase since the application of the 

 guano has been so extraordinary as to be scarcely credible. In ordinary seasons the product has 

 been from six to seven thousand pounds, and, under peculiarly favorable circumstances, it has 

 even reached eight thousand pounds to the acre. Official returns show a gradual increase in 

 the amount of sugar exported from the year 1812 up to the present time. Thus, in that year, 

 it was but 969,200 French pounds ; in 1851 it amounted to 137,373,519 pounds, and the 

 estimated crop of this year (1852) is 140,000,000 pounds. The land would produce cotton and 

 tobacco, but the entire thoughts of the agriculturists of the island are directed to sugar. The 

 proportion of guano used is about one-fourth of a pound to a cane, and the French arpent or 

 acre is estimated to contain about two thousand plants. 



The general abolition of slavery by the English government caused here, as it did in the other 

 English slaveholding colonies, much agricultural distress ; but after a time the introduction of 

 laborers, chiefly from the Malabar coast, under certain prescribed regulations, enabled the 

 planters not only to dispense with the services of the freed negroes, but to obtain labor on 

 cheaper terms than before. The free blacks here, as elsewhere, seemed to think emancipation 

 meant an exemption from all labor; they were consequently indisposed generally to work at all, 

 even for fair wages, and capriciously left their labor just when they pleased. The imported 

 laborers, known under the name of coolies, perform nearly all the agricultural work of the 

 island, as well as load and unload all the ships. On the sugar estates large communities of them 

 are to be found. Comfortable houses are provided for them and their families, and exclusive of 

 house rent and provisions, which are furnished to them, they receive from two to three dollars a 

 month as wages. This is cheaper to the planter than slave labor was. The municipal laws 

 for the protection and government of the coolies are judicious and sufficently minute, yet these 

 people pay but little regard to any bargain they may make with their employers ; they go and 

 come very much as they please, and are tolerated in the exercise of a much larger liberty than 

 is accorded to laboring men in either England or the United States. Notwithstanding all these 

 disadvantages, however, the planter makes large profits from their labor. 



The population of the whole island is about 180,000. Of these nearly 100,000 are negroes 

 from Madagascar and the eastern coast of Africa, who were once slaves. Beside these, are 

 Malays, fishermen from Malabar, Lascars and Chinese. Some of these latter have been 



