CIIAP. IV. 
MISSIONARY EFFORTS AT PORT LOUIS. 
109 
The sheltered.position of the upper part of the valley, and 
the moisture produced by the vicinity of the mountains, 
seemed to favour vegetation. The gardens amongst which 
we passed were well kept, and everything was growing most 
luxuriantly. There was a vigour and freshness in all the 
plants which contrasted strongly with those in the gardens on 
the plain, or near the sea. Amongst the rare and choice 
specimens of flowers which I noticed in the course of our 
walk, were a very fine sort of the Hibiscus mufabilis . 
Besides these there was the agreeable Clerodendron fragrans, 
forming sometimes almost a thicket, and in full flower. 
During the second week in May, the friends attending at 
the Protestant chapel in Port Louis held the annual meet¬ 
ing of their missionary society, nominally auxiliary to the 
London Society, but devoted exclusively to local objects. I 
was glad to be present on this occasion, and to be made 
acquainted more fully with the several objects to which their 
efforts were directed, as well as with their results. With 
much pleasure I listened to the statements of the several 
committees connected with their out-stations, with their 
distribution of religious tracts, their lending library, and 
other means of usefulness among their countrymen. The 
payment of the extraordinarily large sum which the building 
of their substantial chapel had cost still pressed heavily upon 
them; but there was a prospect of the whole being paid at no 
distant period. They have since added an important Sunday 
school organisation, which promises much good. The island 
of Mauritius has presented many difficulties to the Protestant 
missionary; but the Eev. J. Le Brun, who has been permitted 
to labour forty years in the island, and is now assisted by his 
two sons, must feel, in the days of his declining strength, that 
he has not laboured in vain. A large and respectable con¬ 
gregation of coloured people attend his ministry, and an 
