CHAP. IV. MISSIONAKY EFFORTS AT PORT LOUIS. 109 



The sheltered position of the upper part of the valley, and 

 the moisture produced by the vicinity of the mountains, 

 seemed to favour vegetation. The gardens amongst which 

 we passed were well kept, and everything was growing most 

 luxuriantly. There was a vigour and freshness in all the 

 plants which contrasted strongly with those in the gardens on 

 the plain, or near the sea. Amongst the rare and choice 

 specimens, which I noticed in the course of our walk, were 

 a very fine sort of the Hibiscus viutabilis, with single and 

 double flowers, the latter of a light pink when first opened, 

 but gradually changing to a rich rose, sometimes almost 

 a violet colour, and equal in size and form to a good holly- 

 hock. Besides these there was the agreeable Clerodenclron 

 fragrans, forming sometimes almost a thicket, and in full 

 flower. 



During the second week in May, the friends attending at 

 the Protestant chapel in Port Louis held the annual meeting 

 of their missionary society, nominally auxiliary to the London 

 Society, but devoted exclusively to local objects. I was glad 

 to be present on this occasion, and to be made acquainted 

 more fully with the several objects to which their attention 

 was directed, as well as with their apparent results. With 

 much pleasure I listened to the statements of the several 

 committees connected with their out-stations, with their 

 distribution of religious tracts, their lending library, and 

 other means of usefulness among their countrymen. The 

 payment of the extraordinarily large sum which the building 

 of their substantial chapel had cost still pressed heavily upon 

 them ; but there was a prospect of the whole being paid at no 

 distant period. They have since added an important Sunday 

 school organisation, which promises much good. The island 

 of Mauritius has presented many difficulties to the Protestant 

 missionary ; but the Rev. J. Le Brun, who has been permitted 

 to labour forty years in the island, and is now assisted by his 

 two sons, must feel, in the days of his declining strengtli, that 



