88 VISITS TO MADAGASCAK. chap. iv. 



the year, and consequently nothing requiring my particular 

 attention at the port, I was glad to avail myself of every op- 

 portunity that offered for visiting the country districts. On 

 the 13th of December I accompanied M. Le Brun to Plaines 

 Wilhelms, to attend the anniversary services of the opening 

 of the chapel and school at M. Cheron's. We left Port Louis 

 early, and on our way passed numerous carts loaded with 

 sugar or timber, generally drawn by mules, and driven by 

 Coolies. The loads seemed to me heavy, but the animals 

 drawing them were in good condition, and did not appear 

 overworked. M. Le Brun more than once remarked on the 

 different mode of transporting timber, sugar, and other pro- 

 duce now, as compared with that employed during many 

 years after his arrival in the colony in 1814. There were 

 then few beasts of draught or burden in the island. Travellers 

 were carried from place to place in a sort of palanquin on 

 men's shoulders. Carts, from whatever distance they came, 

 with whatever they were loaded, whether with timber, stones, 

 or anything else, were all drawn by slaves, attended by their 

 drivers, twenty slaves being sometimes yoked to one cart. 

 They usually travelled in the night, as they were able to draw 

 the same load a much greater distance then than during the 

 oppressive heat of the day. 



Our road lay through a succession of extensive sugar plan- 

 tations, and we reached our destination, a distance of ten or 

 eleven miles from Port Louis, before 9 o'clock. Here I was 

 cordially welcomed by M. Cheron, and found a small pa- 

 vilion consisting of two rooms appropriated to my use. After 

 a cup of coffee we proceeded to the premises which M. 

 Cheron has, with great liberality and desire for the welfare of 

 those around him, appropriated to religious purposes. The 

 chapel is a neat stone building, with a paved stone floor, and 

 a metal roof, surmounted by a cupola and bell. The building 

 is plainly fitted up, and will hold 200 persons. At a short 



