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of seeing his sugar and cotton manufactories, as also the embouchure of the rivers du Tamarin and du Rempart. The bay into which they are discharged is no more than a sandy bight in the low land, partly filled up with coral; and it would soon be wholly so, did not the fresh stream from the rivers keep a channel open in the middle; it is however. so shallow, that except in fine weather fishing boats even cannot enter without risk.

Upon a plantation in the Plains of St. Pierre, about one mile from the foot of the Montagne du Rempart, are some caverns which M. Curtat procured me the means of examining. In the entrance of one is a perpetual spring, from which a stream takes its course under ground, in a vaulted passage; M. Ducas, the proprietor of the plantation, said he had traced it upon a raft, by the light of flambeaux, more than half a mile without finding its issue; but he supposed it to be in a small lake near the sea side. The other caverns had evidently been connected with the first, until the roof gave way in two places and separated them. The middle portion has a lofty arch, and might be formed into two spacious apartments; its length is not many fathoms, but the third portion, though less spacious, runs in a winding course of several hundred yards. From being unprovided with torches we did not pass the whole length of this third cavern; but at the two extremities, and as far within as could be distinguished, the roof admitted of standing upright, and the breadth was eight or ten yards from side to side.

About thirty years before, this part of the Plains de St. Pierre had been covered with wood, and the caverns inhabited by a set of maroon negroes, whose depredations and murders spread consternation in the neighbourhood. Their main retreat in the third cavern was discovered by a man whom they had left for dead; but having watched them to their haunt, he gave information to the officers of justice, and troops were sent to take them. After securing the further outlet, the soldiers crept to the principal entrance, near which the maroons kept a sentinel with loaded musket in the top of a tree;