464 MAUBITIUS. [CHA*. xxi. 



arid the shops are all French ; indeed, I should think that Calais or 

 Boulogne was much more Anglified. There is a very pretty little 

 theatre, in which operas are excellently performed. We were also 

 surprised at seeing large booksellers' shops, with well-stored shelves ; 

 music and reading bespeak our approach to the old world of 

 civilization; for in truth both Australia and America are new 

 worlds. 



The various races of men walking in the streets afford the most 

 interesting spectacle in Port Louis. Convicts from India are 

 banished here for life ; at present there are about 800, and they are 

 employed in various public works. Before seeing these people, I 

 had no idea that the inhabitants of India were such noble-looking 

 figures. Their skin is extremely dark, and many of the older men 

 had large mustaches and beards of a snow-white colour; this, 

 together with the fire of their expression, gave them quite an im- 

 posing aspect. The greater number had been banished for murder 

 and the worst crimes ; others for causes which can scarcely bo 

 considered as moral faults, such as for not obeying, from super- 

 stitious motives, the English laws. These men are generally quiet 

 and well conducted ; from their outward conduct, their cleanliness, 

 and faithful observance of their strange religious rites, it was im- 

 possible to look at them with the same eyes as on our wretched 

 convicts in New South Wales. 



May 1st. Sunday. I took a quiet walk along the sea-coast to 

 the north of the town. The plain in this partis quite uncultivated ; 

 it consists of a field of black lava, smoothed over with coarse grass 

 and bushes, the latter being chiefly Mimosas. The scenery may be 

 described as intermediate in character between that of the Galapagos 

 and of Tahiti; but this will convey a definite idea to very few 

 persons. It is a very pleasant country, but it has not the charms 

 of Tahiti, or the grandeur of Brazil. The next day I ascended La 

 Pouce, a mountain so called from a thumb-like projection, which 

 rises close behind the town to a height of 2600 feet. The centre of 

 the island consists of a great platform, surrounded by old broken 

 basaltic mountains, with their strata dipping seawards. The 

 central platform, formed of comparatively recent streams of lava, 

 is of an oval shape, thirteen geographical miles across, in the line 

 of its shorter axis. The exterior bounding mountains come into 

 that class of structures called Craters of Elevation, which are sup- 

 posed to have been formed not like ordinary craters, but by a great 



