1847 MAURITIUS 37 



3rd of this month, and passing round the northern extremity of 

 the island, were towed into Port Louis by the handsomest of tugs 

 about noon on the 4th. In my former letter I have spoken to you 

 of the beauty of the places we have visited, of the picturesque 

 ruggedness of Madeira, the fine luxuriance of Rio, and the rude 

 and simple grandeur of South Africa. Much of my admiration 

 has douljtless arisen from the novelty of these tropical or semi- 

 tropical scenes, and would be less vividly revived by a second 

 visit. I have become in a manner blase with fine sights and 

 something of a critic. All this is to lead you to believe that I 

 have really some grounds for the raptures I am going into pres- 

 ently about Mauritius. In truth it is a complete paradise, and 

 if I had nothing better to do, I should pick up some pretty 

 French Eve (and there are plenty) and turn Adam. N.B. There 

 are no serpents in the island. 



This island is, you know, the scene of St. Pierre's beautiful 

 story of Paul and Virginia, over which I suppose most people 

 have sentimentalised at one time or another of their lives. Until 

 we reached here I did not know that the tale was like the lady's 

 improver — a fiction founded on fact, and that Paul and Virginia 

 were at one time flesh and blood, and that their veritable dust 

 was buried at Pamplemousses in a spot considered as one of the 

 lions of the place, and visited as classic ground. Now, though 

 I never was greatly given to the tender and sentimental, and 

 have not had any tendencies that way greatly increased by the 

 elegancies arid courtesies of a midshipman's berth,— not to say 

 that, as far as I recollect, Mdlle. Virginia was a bit of a prude, 

 and M. Paul a pump, — yet were it but for old acquaintance sake, 

 I determined on making a pilgrimage. Pamplemousses is a small 

 village about seven miles from Port Louis, and the road to it 

 is lined by rows of tamarind trees, of cocoanut trees, and sugar- 

 canes. I started early in the morning in order to avoid the great 

 heat of the middle of the day, and having breakfasted at Port 

 Louis, made an early couple of hours' walk of it, meeting on 

 my way numbers of the coloured population hastening to market 

 in all the varieties of their curious Hindoo costume. After some 

 trouble I found my way to the " Tombeaux " as they call them. 

 They are situated in a garden at the back of a house now in 

 the possession of one Mr. GeK.ry, an English mechanist, who 

 puts up half the steam engines for the sugar mills in the island. 

 The garden is now an utter, wilderness, but still very beautiful; 

 round it runs a grassy path, and in the middle of the path on 

 each side towards the further extremity of the garden is a 



