HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
473 
rainy season, and attains its full growth in the space of three months: the inhabi¬ 
tants avail themselves of this period to pasture their flocks; but no sooner is the 
vegetation completed, than a straw succeeds, which is too hard for the nourishment 
of animals. The flocks and herds then quit the savannahs, and seek the food that 
the forests afford them. This straw is so dry that the least spark sets it in a flame, 
which is so rapid that it is impossible to stop its progress. These conflagrations 
have sometimes consumed the adjoining woods. 
When the Portuguese discovered this island, it was covered with wood to the 
very summits of the mountains; in short, it was one vast forest of fine trees. In 
the early period of its settlement the ground was cleared by the means of fire, and 
it would then have been a wise measure to have left small districts of wood at short 
distances from each other. The rains, which in the hot countries are so necessary 
to the fertility of the earth, very seldom fall upon those spots that are entirely 
cleared of trees, as it is the forests which attract the clouds, and draw the humidity 
from them; besides the cultivated grounds have no protection against violent winds. 
The high mountains which border on the harbour, and defend it from the vio¬ 
lence of the winds, have been cleared to their very summits, which are burnt up, 
and the vegetable earth is precipitated into the vallies. The large trees have been 
cut down or burnt, which, when the island was first inhabited, prevented these dan¬ 
gerous removals of the surface; so that the anchorage of the vessels is no longer 
protected from the high sea, and violent winds. A temporary advantage induced 
the first colonists to deprive the port of that security which it formerly possessed. 
M. de Tromelin, a French officer, undertook to find a remedy for this evil, by 
which the port should be protected from hurricanes: and, when he obtained the 
necessary permission, he began to form canals, to convey the torrents from the 
mountains to the sea behind the island of Tonnelier, into a part where they occasion 
no injury. This able and experienced officer extended his views still farther, and 
contrived, by the application of gunpowder, to force a passage through a bank of 
coral, by which ships might enter into the bason, known by the name of Trou-fanfaron. 
It is three hundred fathoms in length, by sixty in breadth, but its mean depth did 
not exceed ten feet; it was therefore necessary to increase it to twenty-five, in order 
to render it capable of receiving vessels of large burden. 
