62 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. chap. hi. 



zambique fowls, each distinct specimen attracting my notice. 

 But the collection was richest in vegetable productions. 

 Many of the European vegetables were large and well grown. 

 Among these was a fine single plant of green curled kale, 

 planted in a tub painted green, as we grow camellias or 

 oranges in conservatories. It must have had much care be- 

 stowed upon it, perhaps by some exile from Caledonia ; for 

 not a leaf was yellow, but as green, and fresh, and as crisped 

 round the edges as in any northern garden. The yams were 

 in great variety, and very fine, as were also the samples of 

 coffee and arrowroot, but especially the sugars ; while the 

 large bundles of truly gigantic cane, eighteen or twenty feet 

 high, were truly astonishing. Sugar is now the staple pro- 

 duce of Mauritius ; and it is not easy to imagine more magni- 

 ficent samples of canes or sugars than were exhibited on this 

 occasion. The attention given to the cultivation of sugar will 

 not appear siu'prising when it is remembered that from this 

 little island more than 220 millions of lbs. of this article are 

 exported every year ; a quantity equal to the cargoes of 300 

 ships of 500 tons' burden each. 



Amongst the many collections of flowers and gi-oups of 

 plants, a towering pyramid of China asters was commendably 

 exhibited for the benefit of the poor, and it afterwards 

 realised 100 dollars. One of the most gorgeous plants was 

 an Aljoinia magnifica, from the royal gardens at Pample- 

 mouses, on which the bunch or cone of scarlet flowers rose on 

 a stalk eight or ten feet from the ground. There was a col- 

 lection exhibited by Mr. Duncan of fifty sorts of roses and 

 some fragTant and beautiful violets ; but one of the groups 

 most suggestive to me consisted of three small plants, well 

 grown, — one of them a common English flower, exhibited by 

 an amateur florist, a Hindoo gentleman from Calcutta em- 

 ployed in one of the government offices. The card on this 

 modest collection indicated that the judges had awarded to 



