54 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR 
CHAP. III. 
town during the early part of the day; and the inhabitants 
here also present an equal diversity of costume and character. 
Arab, Parsee, Bengalee or Chinese merchants, or traders from 
Muscat or Bombay, Tranquebar, Pondicherry, Madras, or 
Calcutta, Singapore or Canton; with English and French mer¬ 
chants and sailors; English military; the local police, the 
latter wearing the same uniform as that of London, excepting 
that the tops of their hats are covered with white canvas 
instead of glazed oilskin. The Indian police wear white 
robes and turbans, and broad blue sashes or belts; besides 
these are the Arabian or Indian hawkers of the produce of 
their respective countries, and the Creoles of Africa or Mada¬ 
gascar, carrying large flat baskets of vegetables or fruit on 
their heads, and inviting custom for their goods in tones more 
attractive than the cries of London;—all these, and many 
others, may be met with in a short walk through some parts 
of the town, or found gathered round a public auction, of 
which there are at times several in a day; and the language 
of all these different nations may also at times be heard, 
though Creole French is perhaps the most common. 
Few places, perhaps, of equally limited extent present a 
population so perfectly cosmopolitan as that of Port Louis. 
The streets of the town, which are many of them wide, cross 
each other at right angles, and are in some parts cooled by 
water-courses, and shaded by trees. The houses of the mer¬ 
chants and more respectable inhabitants are good, being 
generally spacious and substantial stone buildings, chiefly 
after the French style. The large stone-walled warehouses 
are often delightfully cool in the middle of the day. Many 
of the inferior dwellings are of wood, and often stand de¬ 
tached, even in the streets, which may probably prevent fires 
from proving so fearfully destructive as might otherwise be 
the case. The shops are of almost every imaginable kind, 
from the well-furnished English store to the little box-like 
