booksellers' shops, with well-stored shelves;--music and reading
bespeak our approach to the old world of civilization; for in truth
both Australia and America are new worlds.
The various races of men walking in the streets afford the most
interesting spectacle in Port Louis. Convicts from India are banished
here for life; at present there are about 800, and they are employed in
various public works. Before seeing these people, I had no idea that
the inhabitants of India were such noble-looking figures. Their skin
is extremely dark, and many of the older men had large mustaches and
beards of a snow-white colour; this, together with the fire of their
expression, gave them quite an imposing aspect. The greater number had
been banished for murder and the worst crimes; others for causes which
can scarcely be considered as moral faults, such as for not obeying,
from superstitious motives, the English laws. These men are generally
quiet and well-conducted; from their outward conduct, their
cleanliness, and faithful observance of their strange religious rites,
it was impossible to look at them with the same eyes as on our wretched
convicts in New South Wales.
May 1st.--Sunday. I took a quiet walk along the sea-coast to the north
of the town. The plain in this part is quite uncultivated; it consists
of a field of black lava, smoothed over with coarse grass and bushes,
the latter being chiefly Mimosas. The scenery may be described as
intermediate in character between that of the Galapagos and of Tahiti;
but this will convey a definite idea to very few persons. It is a very
pleasant country, but it has not the charms of Tahiti, or the grandeur
of Brazil. The next day I ascended La Pouce, a mountain so called from
a thumb-like projection, which rises close behind the town to a height
of 2,600 feet. The centre of the island consists of a great platform,
surrounded by old broken basaltic mountains, with their strata dipping
seawards. The central platform, formed of comparatively recent streams
of lava, is of an oval shape, thirteen geographical miles across, in
the line of its shorter axis. The exterior bounding mountains come
into that class of structures called Craters of Elevation, which are
supposed to have been formed not like ordinary craters, but by a great
and sudden upheaval. There appears to me to be insuperable objections
to this view: on the other hand, I can hardly believe, in this and in
some other cases, that these marginal crateriform mountains are merely
the basal remnants of immense volcanos, of which the summits either
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