HISTORY OF MAURITIUS, 
99 
the contrary, the soil of the Isle of France is light and sandy; nor is it so hot or so 
much watered as the peninsula of Malacca. This great difference therefore in the 
soil and climate, sufficiently explains the cause why this tree, notwithstanding the 
great attention paid to it, has not succeeded in this island. 
M. le Gentil appears not to entertain any very confident hopes that the cocoa 
tree will flourish in the Isle of France. He speaks of it in the following manner. 
“ When I quitted the Isle of France in 1766, the cocoa tree of Madame Le 
Juge was already of a promisimg appearance: on my return in 1770, after an 
absence of four years, and having seen the cocoa trees at the Philippines, I was not 
satisfied with that of the Isle of France, nor of the progress it had made during my 
absence. It was very short, when compared with the trees I had seen at Manilla: 
it seemed also to have the symptoms of old age, and*£>f a premature decay. It 
had indeed yielded cones of a fine appearance, but they never became perfectly 
ripe: it is natural therefore to suppose, that the cocoa tree will not flourish in the 
Isle of France.” Such is the nature of this tree, and that of the Jaca (the Tijaca 
marum of the Hort. Malab.), that they both bear fruit along their thickest branches, 
and not at the end of them, and sometimes on their trunks, and in their roots. This 
latter operation of nature is a symptom of their approaching decay. They begin 
by bearing fruit on the thick branches, then on the trunks, and lastly on the roots. 
As they advance in age the fructification approaches to the roots, and when the latter 
become the seat of it, the tree is verging on a state of decay. This circumstance 
induced M. le Gentil to determine, that the cocoa tree which he saw in the Isle, 
was advancing to a state of premature old age. 
