CHAP, IV. 
ROYAL GARDENS AT PAMPLEMOUSES. 
105 
adjacent islands, while there are others from the continent 
of Africa, as well as from Australia and South America. 
There is one noble avenue of palmistes, or palms; it is at least 
four hundred yards in length, and for extent and beauty is 
probably unequalled in any other part of the globe. The 
trees are remarkably regular on both sides, presenting few 
openings or chasms. The tallest are forty or fifty feet high, 
and have probably been growing where they now stand for 
nearly a century. The young trees, more recently planted, 
nearer the centre of the walk, cover the lower parts of the 
trunks of the palms, and add greatly to the graceful beauty 
of the vista, along which the lines of lofty waving plumes 
extend. 
Almost every variety of the palm species, or form of growth, 
is to be found in these gardens, and I was much struck with 
the graceful slender forms of some beautiful arecas. There were 
also fine specimens of the Latania rubra , or fan-leaved palm, 
and the singular leaved Caryota urens , the rofia tree, the tra¬ 
veller’s tree, and Dombeya cusjpidata , the last three from Ma¬ 
dagascar, as were also many of the rare and curious plants in 
different parts of the grounds. There were some large trees 
of Adansonia, and hibiscus with flowers of almost every hue, 
growing luxuriantly, and requiring scarcely any other care 
than to be kept within bounds by the pruning knife. 
With regard to the vegetation generally, not only in the 
garden, but other parts of the island, I was often struck with 
the almost incredible strength and rapidity of growth in the 
shoots or branches of some kinds of trees, which frequently 
attained ten or twelve feet in length, besides producing 
smaller lateral branches, in a single season. 
Australian trees were not so numerous as might have been 
expected, and as I afterwards found them at the Cape, though 
there was a tolerably well-grown Norfolk Island pine growing 
