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count of a fhoal which runs out nearly two leagues to fea from the north-north-western part of the island, on which there is but little water.

The 21ft we entered the Strait of Banca, the currents then running out and in at the fame time.

We reached the Strait of Sunda on the 1st of April, and left it on the 3d, with a wind from the north-weft, which afterwards veered to the north, increafing in violence. till on the 14th it fwelled to a tempeft. For twelve hours we were driven along, the gunnel conftantly under water, and were obliged to throw our guns overboard to lighten the veffel. The wind at length abating, we again hoifted fail, and continued our course towards the island Rodrigues, which we defçried on the 28th. We kept to leeward of this island to avoid the English cruizers; and, after coafting under the fouth fide of the Isle of France, during the whole of the 1ft of May, we caft anchor in the port in the evening.

The latitude of the island is twenty degrees nine minutes forty-five feconds; its longitude fifty-five degrees eight minutes eaft of Paris. From north to fouth its length is about fourteen leagues, its breadth ten, and its circumference forty.

The Ifle of France has two ports; but though in my two voyages hither I made the circuit of the island, at only a short distance from the coaft, I did not fee the Grand Port, or that on the eastern side of the island. The air is temperate, and even cool in the pens *; the heat of the climate is powerfully felt only in the town, where the fur-, rounding mountains prevent the cooling influence of the fouth-weft wind.

The fouth-weft generally prevails at the Ifle of France, except from October to April, in which interval the winds are variable; this period alfo is the rainy feafon. At times violent hurricanes occur: the rivers are forced from their beds, plants and trees are torn up by the roots, and houses are levelled with the ground; veffels are not always in fafety even in the port, I myself having feen fome on these occafions driven on fhore. The months in which hurricanes are common are thofe between the end of September and March; they owe their origin apparently to winds contending with the monfoons; and to a fimilar cause muft the fudden gufts be attributed in the China feas.

The island is furrounded with reefs, which in some places extend more than a league from shore; the south fide is more steep, and the sea breaks against it, except in some few spots.

Every thing denotes the existence, in fome former time, of a volcano in this island; the ground is almoft in every part overspread with volcanic ftones, round, of various fize, generally compact, but occafionally porous, and of a greyish colour, inclining to black. The mountains are numerous, and feem to have been convulfed, fplit, and broken by earthquakes, but they are not of volcanic origin; their strata are more or lefs inclined towards the horizon; according to the general disposition of the species of ftone of which they are composed.

The foil is tolerably good, but dry; in many cantons it is of a reddish colour. The earth is not worked deep, and is broken up with a pick-axe: the roots of plants strike beneath the stones, and thus are kept cool and beyond the parching influence of the fun. Wheat is here cultivated, barley, oats, rice, maize, manioc (maniot Indorum), cotton of excellent quality, the fugar-cane, indigo, and coffee, the laft inferior to that of Bourbon. Here alfo plantations of cloves are feen, furrounded by hedges of jamrofa to defend them from the wind, by which they would otherwise be readily broken. * A Creole term for houfes and plantations in the country.

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Nutmeg

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Nutmeg trees are not equally common: in the plains of Wilhem I distinguished fome foap trees (faponaria Americana.)

In the gardens part of the vegetables of Europe are grown, and some sweet potatoes. The most common fruits are the banana, mango, ananas or pine-apples, panglemouffe, guavas, the atè, papaya, and the peach. Cocoa-trees fucceed well, but the number of mangooftans (mangoutiers) is inconfiderable. Oranges, which are very fweet in the Isle of Bourbon, are not good on this ifland.

The Ifle of France is watered by a great many rivulets; fome proceed from the center of the island, and are of fufficient fize to obtain the name of rivers; the coafts furnish a moderate supply of fish.

The island was at one time wholly covered with wood, but part of the trees have gradually been felled, either for the fake of clearing the ground, for fawing into planks, or for the structure of houses; in felling the trees no management has been obferved, and none are planted in fucceffion. The foil, wholly in parts defpoiled of its fhelter, has in confequence become dry and arid, as much from its expofure to the great heat of the fun, as from nothing remaining to arreft the vapours neceffary for the formation of clouds, and confequently of the rains which kept up its fertility. For this mifmanagement a remedy has been fought in the culture of a tree called black wood; but this tree is at best fit for nothing but firing, and has not every where fucceeded, owing to the too great aridity of the foil, or from the earth having been wafhed away by the rains from the removal of the impediment oppofed by the woods, and affording no longer a fufficient fuftenance for the roots.

To the causes of the island being thinned of trees before noticed, others must be added. In the first place there grows in the Ifle of France a thick and coarse grafs, which ferves as fodder, and which, after attaining a confiderable height, becomes dry towards the close of Auguft. This grafs is fet on fire by the negroes in the month of September, and the flame which spreads to a diftance dries the trees and causes them to perish. Secondly, the allowance granted to the negroes to cut faggots in the mountains impedes much the growth of trees, as they lop off branches without paying any attention to whether or no they injure the tree. And lastly, the goats belonging to the Indians who inhabit camp Malabar, and which feed on the heights, brouze on and destroy every thing. From the aggregate of these causes the woods are gradually, but rapidly, deftroyed.

Among the trees of the Ifle of France must be noticed that which produces ebony, the tacamahaca, the milk tree, and the mat tree with large and fmall leaves, the cinnamon tree, the olive, and the stinking tree. The wood of thefe is well adapted for cabinet and carpenters' work.

When I arrived in the Ifle of France, in 1796, the hedges in every quarter were formed of the opuntia, or Indian fig; but fome one fince then having brought into the colony a quantity of the eggs of the kirmes, that infect multiplied with fuch rapidity, as to have entirely destroyed these trees.

The woods abound in ftags, wild goats, wild hogs, hares, monkeys, and rats and mice in multitudes; the three laft animals very deftructive to plantations. In the woods alfo are found paroquets, pintados, bengalis (a little red bird), and a fpecies of partridge.

The infects moft troublesome are carias kakerlaques, mufquitos, fcorpions, fcolopendra, and wafps. It is affirmed that ferpents cannot exift in the Ifle of France. The affertion is difficult of proof; but, what is moft fure, there are none to be found.

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