HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
187 
&nd naturalized in the Isle of Bourbon. But the principal object of cultivation 
is coffee. The first plants of this shrub was brought from Moka, and it is multi¬ 
plied by its grains, which it sows itself. It is necessary to dress the ground round 
the young plant two or three times in the course of the first year, in order to de¬ 
stroy the weeds which might share in its subsistence, and it will then require no 
further care. Its branches, that extend horizontally and are very thick, suffocate, 
as it were, any other plants which might spring up about it. In about eighteen 
months the coffee tree begins to bear fruit, and in the third year it is in full 
bearing. The young shrubs are planted in squares, at the distance of about seven 
feet from each other, and they are kept down, by the pruning knife, to about two 
feet from the earth. 
" The coffee tree requires a light earth, and succeeds better in pure sand than in 
a rich earth. In the Isle of Bourbon, each tree produced, on an average, a pound 
of berries, and it ripens and is gathered in a dry season; a circumstance which gives 
it a very great advantage over the coffee of the American islands, that ripens and is 
gathered in rainy seasons. It is afterwards exposed to the sun during several days, 
till the berry is dry and contracted : it is then disembarrassed of its pulp. 
<c Cocoa trees flourish in the Isle of Bourbon, though they are no longer to be 
seen in the Isle of France :* they were probably destroyed by the first inhabitants. 
This tree is very useful, not only for its fruit, but as it supplies the principal wants 
of man; who derives from it not only food and drink, but wood for building his 
habitation, which is covered with its leaves, while its bark furnishes him with clothing 
and with fuel. 
“ This island also produces the tree from whence the benzoin is distilled, a resinous 
and sweet-smelling gum, which issues from the tree by incision, and whose qualities 
are well known. This tree is also a native of Siam, Sumatra, Sec. There are two 
kinds of benzoin, the one collected in drops, which is the best, and the other in large 
pieces. 
66 The first is clean, transparent, and of a reddish colour, speckled, as it were, 
with white spots, that resemble broken almonds. This circumstance has given it the 
name of Benzoinum Amygdaldides. It affords an aromatic and pleasant odour, 
* There were cocoa trees at Mauritius when it was discovered, but their usefulness has proved 
their destruction. 
Bb 2 
