1696.] FEESII-WATER FISH. 205 



Inhabitants have built Mills to saw Boards. These Elvers 

 liave Fish enough.^ 



On each side of these Elvers you frequently meet with 

 little Valleys, whose Soil is admirably good. There are 

 great tracts of Ground level enough, especially that formerly 

 mention'd call'd Flac- or Flat- Ground : 'tis on this Spot, the 



1 " The fresh-water fish are better than ours ; and appear to be of 

 the same kind as those which are taken in the sea. Among these the 

 best are the lubin, the mullet, and the carp ; the cabot, tliat lives in 

 the torrents formed by rocks, to which it adheres by means of a con- 

 cave membrane ; and very large and delicate shrimps. The eel is a 

 kind of conger ; there are some from seven to eight feet in length, 

 and of the thickness of a man's leg ; they retire into the holes of the 

 rivers, and sometimes devour those who are so imprudent as to bathe 

 there." (Baron Grant, /. c, p. 59.) 



" Foreign fish have been even brought to this place. The Gonrami 

 comes from Batavia. It is a fresh -water fish, and is esteemed to be 

 the best in the Indies. It is like the salmon, but more dehcate. 

 Here are also the gold-fish from China, which lose their beauty as they 

 increase in size. These two species multiply in the pools." {Ibid., 

 p. 69.) The Gourami or Gouramier is the Osphromemis olfax. 



- " This part, which is called la Flacq, is the best cultivated in the 

 island ; rice grows in great plenty. There is a creek in the rocks, by 

 which barges can come and load with the greatest convenience." (Ber- 

 nardin de St. Pierre, op. eit., p. 170.) Vide supra, p. 149. 



M. de Gentil, who wrote in 1779, states : " The District of Flacq, 

 which is a quarry of rocks, produces the finest maize. Such a soil is 

 not favourable to corn ; the inhabitants, therefore, clear away the 

 smallest stones, and plant maize in the places which they occupied, 

 where it is found to luxuriate and grow to the height of from eight to 

 ten feet; and, unpromising as the soil is, the settlers look for two, and 

 sometimes three, harvests in the course of the year. A certain portion 

 of it they pour into the public magazines ; with the rest they nourish 

 their slaves, barter for corn, and feed their hogs and poultry, with 

 which they traffic. They have every convenience that is to be derived 

 from water, as Flacq is a kind of archipelago, on account of the 

 various branches of water that intersect it. This quarter also possesses, 

 in the low grounds towards the sea, some parcels of ground which are 

 proper for the cultivation of rice ; and it was that part of the island 

 which supplied the Company's magazine with such a necessary article." 

 "At Flacq the corn generally produces twenty- fold, and sometimes 

 thirty in fresh ground ; but no more than ten in that which has been 

 in a long and successive state of tillage. (Vide Voyage dans les Mers 

 de V hide, vol. ii, pp. C69, 672.) 



