426 
1805, 
September? 
A VOYAGE TO [At Mauritius . 
have in part subsided; and this occurred thrice in one year and a 
half. 
At the western end of the Mare aux Vacouas is an outlet 
through which a constant stream flows, and this is the commence- 
ment of the principal branch of the R. du Tamarin; the other branch, 
called the R. des Aigrettes, is said to take its rise near a more distant 
lake, named the Grand Bassin ; and their junction is made about one 
mile to the S. S. W. of the Refuge, near the boundary ridge of the 
high land, through which they have made a deep cut, and formed a 
valley of a very romantic character. A short distance above their 
junction, each branch takes a leap downward of about seventy feet; 
and when united, they do not run above a quarter of a mile north- 
ward before they descend with redoubled force a precipice of nearly 
one hundred and twenty feet; there are then one or two small cas- 
cades, and in a short distance another of eighty or a hundred feet ; 
and from thence to the bottom of the valley, the descent is made by 
smaller cascades and numberless rapids. After the united stream 
has run about half a mile northward, and in that space descended near 
a thousand feet from the level of Vacouas, the river turns west; and 
passing through the deep cut or chasm in the boundary ridge, enters 
the plain of Le Tamarin and winds in a serpentine course to the sea. 
The R. du Tamarin is at no time a trifling stream, and in rainy 
weather the quantity of water thrown down the cascades is consider- 
able ; by a calculation from the estimated width, depth, and rate of 
the current after a hurricane, the water then precipitated was 1500 
tons in a minute. There are some points on the high land whence 
most of the cascades may be seen at one view, about a mile distant ; 
from a nearer point some of them are perceived to the left, the Trois 
Mamelles tower over the woods to the right, and almost perpendicu- 
larly under foot is the impetuous stream of the river, driving its way 
amongst the rocks and woods at the bottom of the valley. In front 
is the steep gap, through which the river rushes to the low land of 
Le Tamarin ; and there the eye quits it to survey the sugar planta- 
