50 



AUSTEALASIA. 



trade is carried on under the French flag, and especially by the steamers plying- 

 regularly between the Mascarenhas and Madagascar. 



TOPOGRAI'HY OF RÉUNION. 



St. Bern's, present capital of the island, is not the oldest French settlement^ 

 having been preceded by St. Paul, founded by pioneers from Fort Dauphin, 

 (Madagascar), on the north-west coast. It occupies the northern extremit^^ of the 

 island between two small rivers, and is a fine European city of some forty thousand 

 inhabitants, well laid out with regular streets and some handsome public buildings 



Eig. 16. — The Maeina of St. Denis. 



such as the governor's palace, town hall, barracks, hospital, lyceura, and museum^ 

 A large space in the very heart of the town is occupied b}^ a beautiful botanic 

 garden. But St. Denis, lying on the windward side of the island, is exposed to 

 the full fury of the cyclonic gales, and as it possesses no large sheltered harbour, 

 the shipping, on the approach of these hurricanes, is obliged to quit the open road- 

 stead and take refuge on the high seas. Nevertheless a brisk trade is carried on,^ 

 especially in sugar, of which nearly twenty thousand tons were exported in 1886. 



Till recently the safest, or rather the least dreaded, seaport on the west side of 

 the island was St. Paul, lying " under the wind " some 28 miles from the 

 capital, on a semicircular bay protected on the north by the triangular peninsula 



