88 THE CEMETERY. 



feet above the le^•el of the sea. The view from the 

 top embraces the greater part of this fine island. 

 The coral reef fiinging- the shores is well seen,— the 

 pale green of the shoal water is separated from the 

 deep blue of the ocean by a line of snow-white sm-f. 



For entomological purposes I frequently visited 

 the Cemetery, numbers of insects being attracted by 

 its flowers and trees. The road leading to it, one of the 

 principal evening drives, is shaded by rows of mag- 

 nificent casuarinas, from Madagascar. Some five 

 or six widely-separated religious creeds may each 

 here be seen practising their peculiar modes of 

 interment — Chinese, Mahometan, Hindoo, and Chris- 

 tian } and among the last it was a novelty to me to 

 observe, for the first time, the pleasing custom of 

 decking the graves with fresh flowers, often re- 

 newed weekly for years, disposed in jars of various 

 kinds, from the richly ornamented vase down to the 

 humblest piece of crockery. All the low land here- 

 abouts has been borrowed from the sea; it is a 

 mixture of sand and fragments of coral ; and the 

 land-crabs have established a colony' in one part of 

 the cemeter}^, and run riot among the graves. 



Although well aware of the productiveness of this 

 fine island in marine objects, I was yet unprepared 

 for the sight of upwards of one hundred species of 

 fish, which I frequently Mitnessed of a morning in 

 the market at Port Louis; but this to me was 

 diminished by the regret that the most skilfiil taxi- 

 dermist would signally fail, either to retain upon the 



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