88 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAP. 1Y, 
the year, and consequently nothing requiring my particular 
attention at the port, I was glad to avail myself of every op¬ 
portunity that offered for visiting the country districts. On 
the 13tli of December I accompanied M. Le Brun to Plaines 
Wilhelms, to attend the anniversary services of the opening 
of the chapel and school at M. Cheron’s. We left Port Louis 
early, and on our way passed numerous carts loaded with 
sugar or timber, generally drawn by mules, and driven by 
Coolies. The loads seemed to me heavy, but the animals 
drawing them were in good condition, and did not appear 
overworked. M. Le Brun more than once remarked on the 
different mode of transporting timber, sugar, and other pro¬ 
duce now, as compared with that employed during many 
years after his arrival in the colony in 1814. There were 
then few beasts of draught or burden in the island. Travellers 
were carried from place to place in a sort of palanquin on 
men’s shoulders. Carts, from whatever distance they came, 
with whatever they were loaded, whether with timber, stones, 
or anything else, were all drawn by slaves, attended by their 
drivers, twenty slaves being sometimes yoked to one cart. 
They usually travelled in the night, as they were able to draw 
the same load a much greater distance then than during the 
oppressive heat of the day. 
Our road lay through a succession of extensive sugar plan¬ 
tations, and we reached our destination, a distance of ten or 
eleven miles from Port Louis, before 9 o’clock. Here I was 
cordially welcomed by M. Cheron, and found a small pa¬ 
vilion consisting of two rooms appropriated to my use. After 
a cup of coffee we proceeded to the premises which M. 
Cheron has, with great liberality and desire for the welfare of 
those around him, appropriated to religious purposes. The 
chapel is a neat stone building, with a paved stone floor, and 
a metal roof, surmounted by a cupola and bell. The building 
is plainly fitted up, and will hold 200 persons. At a short 
