8 
Le Plateau , 
six or seven kilometres of nature’s highway—the 
stream. The swampy jungle is not cleared off 
from about the Comptoir, and presently the per¬ 
fume of the fat, rank weeds ; and the wretched 
bridges, a few planks spanning black and fetid 
mud, drove us northwards or inland, towards the 
neat house and grounds of the “ Commandant Par¬ 
ticular.” The outside walls, built in grades with 
the porous, dark-red, laterite-like stone dredged 
from the river, are whitewashed with burnt coral¬ 
line and look clean ; whilst the house, one of the 
best in the place, is French, that is to say, pretty. 
Near it is a cluster of native huts, mostly with 
walls of corded bamboo, some dabbed with clay 
and lime, and all roofed with the ever shabby- 
looking palm-leaf; none are as neat as those of 
the “ bushmen ” in the interior, where they are 
regularly and carefully made like baskets or pan¬ 
niers. The people appeared friendly; the men 
touched their hats, and the women dropped un¬ 
mistakably significant curtsies. 
After admiring the picturesque bush and the 
natural avenues behind Le Plateau, we diverged 
towards the local Pere-la-Chaise. The new ceme¬ 
tery, surrounded by a tall stone wall and approached 
by a large locked gate, contains only four tombs ; 
the old burial ground opposite is unwalled, open, 
and painfully crowded ; the trees have run wild, 
the crosses cumber the ground, the gravestones are 
