n the heights. Here it is reversed: the
entire coast is so scorchingly hot, and the air so bad, that at Port
St. Louis, and other places round, no one dares venture out in the daytime
during six months of the year, as he may be almost certain of having a
sun-stroke, which occasions a brain-fever, the malignant fever, cholera
morbus, or dysentery; while, at the same period, in the interior,
particularly on the windward side, the air is temperate and salubrious.
For six months in the year, from November to April, the town of St. Louis
is insufferably and noxiously hot; scarcely any one but the slaves could
be induced to remain there, the free inhabitants departing for the
interior. Then again, the dry months at Port St. Louis are the rainy ones
in the central parts; and, whilst the fiercest hurricanes are raging on
the coast, a few miles in-land all is calm and sunshine. I have repeatedly
witnessed this; and it is strange in so small an island."

"De Ruyter now came up, and we suddenly stood on the elevated plain,
called Vacois, in the centre of the island. Our ascent had been very
abrupt, winding, and rugged. Before us, in the middle of the plain, on
which we now rode, was the pyramidical mountain, _Piton du Milieu_.
Inclining to our right was the port and town of St. Louis. To the south
were large plains, in rich vegetation, divided by a fine river, with one
solitary hill. To the north were other plains, inclining to the sea, white
as if the briny waters had recently receded from them, and only partially
cultivated with sugar-canes, indigo, and in the marshy spots, with rice.
From south to east it was volcanic and mountainous, with jungle and
ancient forests. The north-east was, for the most part, level. The plain,
where we were, was full of little sheets of deep water, forming themselves
into pretty lakes; which, overflowing during the heavy rains, at times
made the plain swampy, and ever overgrown with canes, reeds, and gigantic
grass. Such was the diversified and beautiful scenery now disclosed, as
the sun, having risen above the mountain in the east, dissipated the
yellow mists, and laid bare the hitherto obscured beauties of this divine
island, like a virgin unrobed for bathing."

"We alighted under the shade of a group of the rose-apple trees, which
seemed to have drawn a charmed circle round a solitary oak, on the brink
of a lake, clear as a diamond, and apparently of amazing depth, the golden
Chinese fish sporti