436 
1805. 
September. 
A VOYAGE TO {At Mauritius . 
These statements will give a general idea of a plantation at Vacouas, 
the employments of the more considerable inhabitants', of the food 
of the slaves, &c., and will render unnecessary any further explana- 
tion on these heads. 
It was considered a fair estimate, that a habitation should give 
yearly 20 per cent, on the capital employed, after allowance made 
for all common losses ; and money placed on good security obtained 
from 9 to 1 8 per cent, in time of war, and 1 2 to 24 in the preceding 
peace. Had my planter put his 18,000 dollars out at interest, 
instead of employing them on a plantation at Vacouas, and been able 
to obtain 15 per cent., he would at the end of five years, after ex- 
pending 150 dollars each month in the town of Port Louis, have 
increased his capital nearly 5,000 dollars ; but it is more than pro- 
bable that he would have fallen into the luxury of the place, and 
have rather diminished than increased his fortune. 
The woods of Vacouas are exceedingly thick, and so interwoven 
with different kinds of climbing plants, that it is difficult to force a 
passage through ; and to take a ride where no roads have been cut, 
is as impossible as to take a flight in the air. Except morasses and 
the borders of lakes, I did not see a space of five square yards in 
these woods, which was covered with grass and unencumbered with 
shrubs or trees; even the paths not much frequented, if not impass- 
able, are rendered very embarrassing by the raspberries, wild 
tobacco, and other shrubs with which they are quickly overgrown. 
Cleared lands which have ceased to be cultivated, are usually clothed 
with a strong, coarse grass, called chien-dent, intermixed with ferns, 
wild tobacco, and other noxious weeds. In the! ow districts the grass 
is of a better kind, and supplies the cattle with tolerable food during 
three or four months that it is young and tender, and for most of the 
year in marshy places; at other times they are partly fed with maize 
straw, the refuse of the sugar mills, and the leaves and tender 
branches of some trees. 
A few short-legged hares and some scattered partridges are 
