S 4 
HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
small hole, lose themselves in the earth. Though the ground possesses sufficient 
consistency to bear a man, a stick of five feet long may every where be plunged into 
it With the greatest facility. There is a small hole at the extremity, through which 
it would be impossible to pass without the assistance of the creeping plants and 
shrub-wood which grow about it: by clinging to them, a person may draw himself 
through it. Through the greater part of this.cavern there is, on both sides of it, a 
parapet wall, that rather inclines from its perpendicular, and is from three to four 
feet in height. This cavern must have been formed by a sinking of the ground, and 
probably has been deeper than it is at present, as the rains which enter it, always 
bring something with them. 
These parapets are the more remarkable in the caverns, as the mountains them¬ 
selves appear also to possess them. On examining the bottom of the river Lataniers, 
near the plantation of the priests, which is among the mountains, it is perceptible 
that these steps, or parapets, rise from the bottom of the river up the mountains, 
and extend along the chain of them. The Long mountain, that lies to the left, has 
them also. They are likewise apparent in the mountains that form the bay called 
Ance Courtois, which is traversed to go to the quarter of Moka. These small banks 
have a slight inclination ; and all these mountains resemble, in their united shape, the 
foot of a goose, as they surround Port Louis: The highest of these mountains, 
according to the measurement of the Abbe de la Caille, is upwards of two thousand 
four hundred feet above the level of the sea. They are blocks of very hard stone, 
whose substance appears somewhat different from that of the rocks of quartz, which 
have been already mentioned as being formed in the earth. A piece of the stone, 
taken from this mountain, being thrown into the furnace of a workshop established 
on the spot, and withdrawn in an almost liquified state, produced a grain of lead, 
about the size of a large pin’s head. In every other respect this mountain appeared, 
like all the others, a kind of schisteuse stone,* in horizontal, vertical, and shelving 
beds, in whose interior parts are found small crystals. This rock is very hard, and 
its parts equally tenacious. The undermining it with gunpowder had very little 
effect, as it probably found a vent through clefts in the beds, which though appa¬ 
rently well united, are not without many imperceptible, as well as visible openings, 
which offer a sufficient passage for the air. Aqua fortis being poured on a piece 
of this stone, caused an effervescence in several parts. 
* (Hist. Nat. Mineralog.) Schistus, saxum sissile, lapis sissilis: a kind of slate. 
