54 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. chap. in. 



to-vvn during the early jDart of the day ; and the inhabitants 

 here also j)resent an equal diversity of costume and character. 

 Arab, Parsee, Bengalee or Chinese merchants, or traders from 

 Muscat or Bombay, Tranquebar, Pondicherry, Madras, or 

 Calcutta, Singapore or Canton ; with English and French mer- 

 chants and sailors ; English military ; the local police, wearing 

 the same uniform as that of London, excepting that the tops 

 of their hats are covered with white canvas instead of glazed 

 oilskin, and the Indian police with their white robes and tur- 

 bans, and broad blue sashes or belts ; the Arabian or Indian 

 hawkers of the produce of their respective countries, and the 

 Creoles of Africa or Madagascar, carrying large flat baskets 

 of vegetables or fruit on their heads, and inviting custom for 

 their goods in tones more attractive than the cries of London ; 

 — all these, and many others, may be met with in a short walk 

 through some parts of the town, or found gathered round a 

 public auction, of which there are at times several in a day ; 

 and the language of all these different nations may also at 

 times be heard, though French is perhaps the most common. 

 Few places, perhaps, of equally limited extent present a 

 population so perfectly cosmopolitan as that of Port Louis. 

 The streets of the town, which are many of them wide, cross 

 each other at right angles, and are in some parts cooled by 

 water-courses, and shaded by trees. The houses of the mer- 

 chants and more respectable inhabitants are good, being 

 generally spacious and substantial stone buildings, chiefly 

 after the French style. The large stone-walled warehouses 

 are often delightfully cool in the middle of the day. Many 

 of the inferior dwellings are of wood, and often stand de- 

 tached, even in the streets, which may probably prevent fires 

 from proving so fearfully destructive as might otherwise be 

 the case. The shops are of almost every imaginable kind, 

 from the well-furnished English store to the little box-like 

 room in which a Malabar or a Creole offers cigars or tobacco 

 for sale. Many of the shops are well fitted up and furnished, 



