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central parts of Mauritius, a day seldom passes throughout the year without rain; even at Vacouas it falls more or less during six or eight months, whilst in the low lands there is very little except from December to March. This moisture creates an abundance of vegetation, and should have rendered the middle parts of the island extremely fertile; as they would be if the soil were not washed down to the low lands and into the sea, almost as soon as formed. Large timber, whose roots are not seen on the surface, and a black soil, are here the exterior marks of fertility; but near the Grand Bassin the trees are small, though thickly set, and the roots, unable to penetrate below, spread along the ground. The little soil which has accumulated seemed to be good, and it will increase, though slowly; for the decayed wood adds something to its quantity every year, whilst the trunks and roots of the trees save a part from being washed away. Both these advantages are lost in the cleared lands of Vacouas, which besides are made to produce from two to four crops every year; the soil is therefore soon exhausted, and manuring is scarcely known. A plantation covered with loose rocks is found to retain its fertility longest; apparently from the stones preserving the vegetable earth against the heavy rains, as the roots of the trees did before the ground was cleared.

Much of the lower part of Wilhems Plains has been long cleared and occupied, and this is one of the most agreeable portions of the island; but Vacouas is in its infancy of cultivation, three-fourths of it being still covered with wood. This neglect it owes to the coldness and moisture of the climate rendering it unfit for the produce of sugar and cotton, to its being remote from the sea side, and more than all to its distance from the town of Port Louis, the great mart for all kinds of productions. Mauritius is not laid out like the counties in England and other parts of Europe, with a city or market town at every ten or twenty miles; nor yet like the neighbouring isle Bourbon, where there are two or three towns and some villages; it has but one town, which is the seat of government and commerce