100 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. chap. it. 



noble tree, it is less magnificent than the Poinciana regia. 

 The estate of Wolmar comprises about 1200 acres, and yields 

 excellent cane. The works are furnished with vacuum pans, 

 and some of the most recent improvements. I here saw for 

 the first time, in its different stages, the whole process of 

 sugar making, from the grinding of the cane to the final 

 drying of the crystallised sugar. On this estate, which is 

 low, and near the sea, there were some of the largest trees 

 I had seen in the island, especially the Badamia. I noticed 

 here, what I had also observed elsewhere, that whatever might 

 be the size of the trunks of the trees, most of the large branches 

 appeared to have been broken off at a short distance from 

 the main stem, while the indentations and seams in different 

 parts of the trunk itself indicated that a great arm of the tree 

 had been violently broken off or torn out, leaving in these 

 fractured limbs and scarred trunks a memorial of the force 

 of the hurricanes which occasionally sweep across the island. 

 The sky became overcast towards the end of the week, the 

 wind tempestuous, and the rapid fall of the barometer indicated 

 the approach of a hurricane. Guns as signals of distress 

 were heard during the Saturday night ; and on Sunday, the 

 29th of January, when Mr. W. Brownrigg kindly drove me into 

 Port Louis that I might discharge my Sabbath duties, I 

 found but a small assemblage, all the ships that could leave 

 having put to sea. In the morning a Dutch vessel came 

 in dismasted and otherwise injured. During the day, I also 

 received letters from Madagascar, a vessel having arrived in 

 the unusually short time of four days from Tamatave. Ee- 

 turning to Plaines Wilhelms in the cool of the evening Avas 

 exceedingly pleasant ; on the following day, however, the 

 rain came down in sheets, and the plain was flooded. But 

 whenever thus confined to the house, I usually found my 

 way to the well-furnished library ; and, notwithstanding the 

 unsettled state of the weather, time passed very pleasantly 



