d at his heart, and could have quietened the desire that was ever
uppermost in his mind to continue the exploratory work still remaining to
be done, his term under Madame D'Arifat's roof would have been
delightfully happy.

Those twenty months in Port Louis had made him a greatly changed man.
Friends who had known him in the days of eager activity, when fatigues
were lightly sustained, would scarcely have recognised the brisk explorer
in the pale, emaciated, weak, limping semi-invalid who took his leave of
the kind-hearted sergeant of the guard on August 19th, and stepped feebly
outside the iron gate in company with his friend Pitot. A portrait of
him, painted by an amateur some time later, crude in execution though it
is, shows the hollow cheeks of a man who had suffered, and conveys an
idea of the dimmed eyes whose brightness and commanding expression had
once been remarked by many who came in contact with him.

But at all events over five years of fairly pleasant existence were now
before him. The reason why the period was so protracted will be explained
in the next chapter. This one can be devoted to the life at Wilhelm's
Plains.

A parole was given, by which Flinders bound himself not to go more than
two leagues from his habitation, and to conduct himself with that degree
of reserve which was becoming in an officer residing in a colony with
whose parent state his nation was at war.

The interior of Mauritius is perhaps as beautiful a piece of country as
there is in the world. The vegetation is rich and varied, gemmed with
flowers and plentifully watered by cool, pure, never-failing streams. To
one who had been long in prison pent, the journey inland was a procession
of delights. Monsieur Pitot, who was intimate with the country gentlemen,
made the stages easy, and several visits were paid by the way. The
cultivated French people of the island were all very glad to entertain
Flinders, of whom they had heard much, and who won their sympathy by
reason of his wrongs, and their affection by his own personality.
Charming gardens shaded by mango and other fruit trees, cool fish-ponds,
splashing cascades and tumbling waterfalls, coffee and clove plantations,
breathing out a spicy fragrance, stretches of natural forest--a perpetual
variety in beauty--gratified the traveller, as he ascended the thousand
feet above which stretched the plateau whereon the home of Madame
D'Arifat stood.

In the garden of the house were two