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glacl of a rest. She made me understand her husband was a 
fisherman and that even then he was on his way home up the 
mountain. He very soon put in an appearance, and when he 
saw me he welcomed me in English, as he told me he had ser- 
ved in an American whaler. He at once offered to get me 
some coconuts, and his wife busied herself to prepare me 
some bread fruit she had been roasting in ashes for her hus- 
baitd, very good I found it the first time I had tasted this * 
delicious fruit cooked in this manner, and the coconut milk 
was most refreshing after my climb. My visit seemed to make 
quite a small excitement. The mau now told me his history, 
a simple one enough, his father was a mozambique slave, and 
he himself had tried all sorts of employments, but having 
made some money whaling, he had settled down on this moun- 
tain, and cultivated a little patch of ground. Some patates, 
rice, etc., forming nearly all his wealth, with some fowls that 
lived mostly by their wits and scraped a livelihood in the 
bushes. He told me that formerly he had planted tobacco 
and made some profit by it, but now it was so heavily taxed 
he was obliged to abandon it. He might have done it on the 
sly, but he said his priest who was a good man, told him not 
to do so, noc to break the laws, so he obeyed, but found it 
very hard. He eked out a living by fishing, and thus helped 
the daily larder. I filled my pipe with some capital tobacco 
grown in the island, and as it is very possible by far the 
greater number of those who use the “weed” in Mauritius 
know nothing of its culture, I will give a slight summary of it. 
“ As soon as the plant shows flower every bud and small 
shoot on the base of the stem must be picked off each plant, 
and this every 24 hours. By doing so the leaves acquire great 
breadth and all the vigour of the plant. When fit to cut, 
which is proved by the thick, spotty appearance of the leaf 
and a gummy secretion on it of a brown colour, it is taken ofi' 
about three inches from the ground, and laid in the sun for 
about a quarter of an hour, and then hung up to await its 
final preparation of having the veins of the leaves extracted. 
All injured ones are laid aside, and the good are rolled up 
tightly into “ carottes ” and bound together by being placed 
