IMPROVEMENTS — SETTLEMENT. 



261 



tiers, and is so much relished by cattle, horses, and pigs, that 

 the plant itself is greatly diminished in quantity, and now can 

 only be found in its former luxuriance upon islands where 

 cattle or hogs have not access. These flags or rushes are more 

 than six feet high ; they make good thatch and a soft bed. 

 There is a shrub, or rather creeper, of which the French made 

 a kind of beer, thought to be wholesome and anti-scorbutic ; 

 and there are other vegetable productions which are of little 

 consequence, perhaps, except to botanists,*" and as most of 

 them were long ago well described by Bougainville, I may 

 beg the reader to refer to his fourth chapter (Details sur Phis- 

 toire naturelle des lies Malouines) for a very faithful and well- 

 written account, to every statement in which, as far as my 

 own knowledge goes, I can bear testimony. 



Having mentioned the principal productions, it remains to 

 say what more may be effected and what improvements may be 

 made by an industrious colony. Land, which is now in a state 

 of nature, might be surprisingly improved by ploughing and 

 manuring with burned peat or with kelp, which is so abundant 

 on every part of the shore. Walls, or rather mounds of turf, 

 a few feet in height, would assist the slopes of the ground in 

 sheltering cultivated soil from south-west winds, and where 

 stones, as well as turf, are so plentiful, it would be worth while 

 to make a number of small enclosures for fields as well as gar- 

 dens, taking care always to select the sides of hills, or rather 

 sloping grounds which incline towards the north-east. Fresh 

 water being abundant everywhere, and the islands being so 

 much cut into by the sea, that water carriage could be obtained 

 to within a very few miles of any place, there can be no great 

 preference for one locality rather than another, with a view to 

 agriculture alone ; but of course the principal settlement must 

 be near the eastern extremity of the archipelago, because that 

 part is most accessible to shipping, and even now frequently 

 visited. A colony planted near Port William, or at Port 

 Louis, with a small establishment to supply the wants of ship- 



* " On a spot, twelve feet square, chosen indiscriminately on the risinj^ 

 grounds in the interior, twenty-seven different plants were counted."— 

 (Vernet, MS.) 



