*54 
HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
or mahogany tree, of different kinds. There are at least twenty other species of 
tree, whose fruit is wholesome, delicious, and of great variety. There are also the 
aloes, indigo, sugar canes, cotton, the anana, the banana, tobacco, the potato, the 
pumpkin, land and water melons, cucumbers, and an hundred other plants, fruits, 
and roots, which grow every where, and without cultivation, even on the mountains. 
Turkey corn, or maize, millet, rice, wheat, barley, and oats, are also experimentally 
known to flourish there; and a twofold harvest of these grains may be annually 
gathered. All the plants and herbs of our European gardens have been cultivated 
there with great success. As the grapes are excellent, the inhabitants may look to 
the time when they will drink good wine of their own growth: nor is there any 
reason to doubt that they might naturalize, in this island, the greater part of the 
fruit-trees of our continent. 
“ The horned cattle, hogs, and goats, which were transported thither by the 
Portuguese, have multiplied in such a degree, that they are seen in large herds 
and flocks in the forests. It would not therefore be an unreasonable expectation 
that deer, sheep, and the other animals which are seen in the same climates, would 
procreate and increase in this island. 
“ Among the birds that are common there, I shall enumerate the partridge, the 
turtle dove, the wood pigeon, the snipe, the blackbird, the thrush, the goose, the 
duck, the bittern, the moor-hen, the parroquets, the egret, the booby, the fregate, 
the sparrow, and a great number of small birds. There are also several kinds of 
birds of prey, and sea birds. There are bats as large as our fowls, which the inha¬ 
bitants consider as an addition to their tables. The giant and the dodo* are large 
birds of an extraordinary height, which frequent the rivers and the lakes, and whose 
flesh is like that of the bittern. The partridges are grey, and about half the size of 
ours. The male sparrow has a red throat, whose colour, in the coupling season, 
becomes more brilliant: but though these birds embellish nature, they are very hostile 
to the farmer, as they come in clouds to devour the grain that has been sown, and it 
is necessary to employ every means for their destruction. 
“ There are also snails, and flies which are very troublesome: and lastly, there 
are hurricanes; which, though they are not so furious as those of the American 
• I believe that in this description, as well as in those of Le Guat and others, the great bird 
which they call Giant, and Solitaire, is the same; it is the Dodo, or Dronte, of Buffon. See 
page 117. 
