62 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAP. III. 
zambique fowls, each distinct specimen attracting my notice. 
But the collection was richest in vegetable productions. 
Many of the European vegetables were large and well grown. 
Among these was a fine single plant of green curled kale , 
planted in a tub painted green, as we grow camellias or 
oranges in conservatories. It must have had much care be¬ 
stowed upon it, perhaps by some exile from Caledonia; for 
not a leaf was yellow, but as green, and fresh, and as crisped 
round the edges as in any northern garden. The yams were 
in great variety, and very fine, as were also the samples of 
coffee and arrowroot, but especially the sugars; while the 
large bundles of truly gigantic cane, eighteen or twenty feet 
high, were truly astonishing. Sugar is now the staple pro¬ 
duce of Mauritius; and it is not easy to imagine more magni¬ 
ficent samples of canes or sugars than were exhibited on this 
occasion. The attention given to the cultivation of sugar will 
not appear surprising when it is remembered that from this 
little island more than 220 millions of lbs. of this article are 
exported every year; a quantity equal to the cargoes of 300 
ships of 500 tons’ burden each. 
Amongst the many collections of flowers and groups of 
plants, a towering pyramid of China asters was commendably 
exhibited for the benefit of the poor, and it afterwards 
realised 100 dollars. One of the most gorgeous plants was 
an Alpinia magnifica, from the royal gardens at Pample- 
mouses, on which the bunch or cone of scarlet flowers rose on 
a stalk eight or ten feet from the ground. There was a col¬ 
lection exhibited by Mr. Duncan of fifty sorts of roses and 
some fragrant and beautiful violets; but one of the groups 
most suggestive to me consisted of three small plants, well 
grown,—one of them a common English flower, exhibited by 
an amateur florist, a Hindoo gentleman from Calcutta em¬ 
ployed in one of the government offices. The card on this 
modest collection indicated that the judges had awarded to 
