34 
HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
In those parts of the island which have been cleared, a shrub grows in great abun¬ 
dance whose leaves wear the form of an heart; its smell is grateful like that of balm, 
whose name it bears. It is employed to medicate baths. 
The Fausse Patate runs along the shore, like rope-weed, with red flowers, in the 
form of bells. It delights in th$ sand. 
In the very borders of the woods, a ligneous plant is found, called the basket 
plant, and tolerable thread is made from it: its leaves, which are small, wtien taken 
in barley water, are remedial for disorders in the breast. 
There are a great variety of plants or shrubs comprehended under the name of 
Lianes, some of which attain the thickness of a man’s thigh. They attach themselves 
to trees, to which they give the appearance of masts trimmed with rigging, while they 
protect them by their ligatures from the violence of the hurricanes. Nor can a tree, 
attached by them to the soil, be taken away after it is cut through, till these creepers 
are separated from it. The ropes made of their bark are stronger than those which 
are manufactured from hemp. 
There are several shrubs whose leaves are like those of box. 
There is also a spongy and thorny shrub, which has a large round leaf, and whose 
tufted flowers are of a deep red. Fishermen employ its stem, which is very light, 
instead of cork. 
There is another very pretty wood, called Bois de Demoiselles: the leaf is indented 
like the ash leaf, and its branches are covered with small red berries. 
According, to M. Poivre,* who was appointed Intendant of the Isles of France 
* M. Poivre was born at Lyons in 1719, and entered at a very early age into the Congnegation 
of foreign Missions, who sent him to China. He travelled through several parts of that empire, 
and paid particular attention to the agriculture of it. On his return to Europe, the ship in which 
he was a passenger was attacked by a British ship of war, and, during the engagement, he had the 
misfortune to lose arm, that was carried away by a cannon shot. This accident obliged him to 
renounce {he ecclesiastical stpiSg ; but the East India Company being well acquainted with his. ac¬ 
tivity ajvd knowledge, selected him for the purpose of establishing a new branch of commerce at 
Cochin China. Having succeeded in this undertaking, he was appointed, by the Duke de Choiseul, 
Intendant of the Isles of France and Bourbon, in the year 1766; and in this situation, he fully an- 
swered fhe expectations of the French Minister. He encouraged among the inhabitants a spirit of 
agriculture, as well as a taste for the arts and other .improvements. He sent to Madagascar for a 
supply of) cattle and sheep to stock the island; he naturalized the tree - that bears!the'.bread-fruit 5 
and, notwithstanding the-npny difficulties he had to encounter, succeeded in procuring plants of 
