HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
201 
As he was without any engineer or architect, he was under the necessity of 
assuming both those characters; and being well acquainted with mathematics, and 
the science of fortification, he formed such plans as were approved by the Company. 
In order to carry them into execution, he produced workmen of every kind, by 
putting a large number of Negroes into a "state of apprenticeship, under the very few 
master workmen which he had with him: nor is it easy to conceive the difficulty he 
had to compel the one to afford instruction, and the others to receive it. At length, 
however, he found himself in possession of a sufficient number of workmen to carry 
his designs into execution. But the obstacles to them did not end here: to collect 
a sufficient quantity of materials, was a very arduous operation; trees were to be 
felled in the wood, stone to be hewn from the quarry, and carriages were to be con¬ 
structed to convey them to their destination. Besides, there were no roads along 
which they could pass, or horses to draw them. Roads were therefore to be formed, 
and bullocks were to be broken in to the yoke ; and all these various preparations 
were to be made by people whose indolence resisted all labour, and whose minds 
were insensible to the general good and the public interest. M. de la Bourdonnais 
however contrived, by a wise application of gentle means, and rigorous severity, as 
different occasions and characters required, to erect very considerable works, whose 
utility and advantage are now universally acknowledged. 
But it is not the Company alone which has derived advantage from these labours: 
the colony has experienced infinite advantages, since, by the establishment of roads, 
the employment of carriages, and, above all, by the emulation that M. de la Bour¬ 
donnais had awakened among the inhabitants, he reduced the greater part of the 
necessary materials, such as wood, chalk, &c. to a fifth part of their former value. 
The only hospital in the Isle of France was a large hut, formed with stakes or 
pallisadoes, which would not contain more than thirty beds; when he ordered a 
commodious building to be erected for that purpose, in which from four to five 
hundred beds might be conveniently placed. The administration of the hospitals 
was attended with incredible trouble to M. de la Bourdonnais; and, for one entire 
year, he found it absolutely necessary to pay them a daily visit; but even this pain¬ 
ful attention could not preser ve them from the bad effects of negligence, incapacity, 
knavery, and ingratitude. 
It would be needless to enter into a detail of all the various buildings and works 
which M. de la Bourdonnais had caused to be erected in the course of his admi- 
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