WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 171 



This was not the time for a traveller to enjoy Cayenne. 

 The hospitality of the inhabitants was the same as ever, 

 but they had lost their wonted gaiety in public, and the 

 stranger might read in their countenances, as the recollec- 

 tion of recent humiliations and misfortunes every now and 

 then kept breaking in upon them, that they were still in 

 sorrow for their fallen country: the victorious hostile 

 cannon of Waterloo still sounded in their ears : their 

 Emperor was a prisoner amongst the hideous rocks of St. 

 Helena ; and many a Frenchman who had fought and bled 

 for France was now amongst them, begging for a little 

 support to prolong a life which would be forfeited on the 

 parent soil. To add another handful to the cypress and 

 wormwood already scattered amongst these polite colonists, 

 they had just received orders from the court of Janeiro to 

 put on deep mourning for six months, and half-mourning 

 for as many more, on account of the death of the Queen of 

 Portugal. 



About a day's journey in the interior is the celebrated 

 national plantation. This spot was judiciously chosen, for 

 it is out of the reach of enemies' cruisers. It is called La 

 Gabrielle. No plantation in the western world can vie 

 with La Gabrielle. Its spices are of the choicest kind ; its 

 soil particularly favourable to them ; its arrangements 

 beautiful ; and its directeur. Monsieur Martin, a botanist 

 of first-rate abilities. This indefatigable naturalist ranged 

 through the East, under a royal commission, in quest of 

 botanical knowledge ; and during his stay in the western 

 regions has sent over to Europe from twenty to twenty- 

 five thousand specimens, in botany and zoology. La 

 Gabrielle is on a far-extending range of woody hills. 

 Figure to yourself a hill in the shape of a bowl reversed, 

 with the buildings on the top of it, and you will have an 

 idea of the appearance of La Gabrielle. You approach the 



