AW A VOYAGE TO [At Mauritius. 
September. centra ^ P arts °f Mauritius, a day seldom passes throughout the year 
without rain; even at Vacouas it falls more or less during six or 
eight months, whilst in the low lands there is very little except from 
December to March. This moisture creates an abundance of vetre- 
tation, and should have rendered the middle parts of the island ex- 
tremely fertile ; as they would be if the soil were not washed down 
to the low lands and into the sea, almost as soon as formed. Large 
timber, whose roots are not seen on the surface, and a black soil, 
are here the exterior marks of fertility ; but near the Grand Bassin 
the trees are small, though thickly set, and the roots, unable to 
penetrate below, spread along the ground. The little soil which has 
accumulated seemed to be good, and it will increase, though slowly ; 
for the decayed wood adds something to its quantity every year, 
whilst the trunks and roots of the trees save a part from being 
washed away. Both these advantages are lost in the cleared lands 
of Vacouas, which besides are made to produce from two to four 
crops every year ; the soil is therefore soon exhausted, and manuring 
is scarcely known. A plantation covered with loose rocks is found to 
retain its fertility longest ; apparently from the stones preserving 
the, vegetable earth against the heavy rains, as the roots of the trees 
did before the ground was cleared. 
Much of the lower part of Wilhems Plains has been long cleared 
and occupied, and this is one of the most agreeable portions of the 
island ; but Vacouas is in its infancy of cultivation, three-fourths of 
it being still covered with wood. This neglect it owes to the cold- 
ness and moisture of the climate rendering it unfit for the produce of 
sugar and cotton, to its being remote from the sea side, and more 
than all to its distance from the town of Port Louis, the great mart 
for all kinds of productions. Mauritius is not laid out like the counties 
in England and other parts of Europe, with a city or market town at 
every ten or twenty miles ; nor yet like the neighbouring isle 
Bourbon, where there are two or three towns and some villages ; it 
has but one town, which is the seat of government and commerce 
