HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
81 
and composed of two ranks of enormous rocks, placed on each other, which resemble 
the artificial foundation of some vast edifice. They are likewise split in a perpen¬ 
dicular manner, and the clefts seem to have been filled with some kind of cement. 
This range had certainly been covered with earth, like those which are found in the 
neighbouring plain, between the port and the Great river: but, from its elevated 
position, the torrents have, by degrees, carried away the ground that covered it into 
the neighbouring ravine. 
About half way between the plantation, in which the forges are established, and 
the Bay of Turtles on the shore, at about a league from the sea, is a frightful solitude. 
It consists of a large open country, whose surface is parched, barren, and rocky, 
with horizontal banks of stone which are level with the earth in some places, and 
in others only present their points, «&c. Numerous spots of this kind seem to militate 
against the opinion, that the island is nothing more than various beds of matter, 
heaped upon one another. 
Over the Rampart river, on the road leading to Flacq, about three leagues 
from Port Louis, is a bridge which was constructed in 1770, and certainly does not 
announce the progress that has been made in the construction of bridges and causeys 
within the last fifty years: but the object which more particularly engages our 
attention in this place, is a ledge of rocks beginning at this bridge, and stretching 
along the sands in the road of Flacq. At the bridge the river takes a bold meander, 
which forms a Lind of peninsula or isthmus. To the right, in going to Flacq, the 
bank is interrupted and divided by the course of the river, which is not more 
than from twenty-five to thirty feet wide at the bridge; so that it has the 
appearance of having been cut away to give a free current to the water. It is the 
more remarkable, as this bank, which is ferruginous, is of the greatest hardness: the 
two beds of stone, also, exactly correspond with each side of the river. This bank is 
formed of beds from one to two feet in thickness; it rests upon the ground, and is a 
little inclined towards the water, which proves that it has given way on that side. In 
some parts the ground beneath has been carried away, and has formed what appears 
to be the hollow entrances of a cavern. A little farther onward are to be seen 
some portions of the same bank, which, having been broken off above, have pro¬ 
bably fallen into the river. Continuing the road to Flacq, at sixty or eighty 
fathom from the bridge, this bank is like the upper part of a large vault, from 
thirty to forty fathom broad: it stretches out very far to the right and left, and 
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