Creoles and coolies; or, Five years in Mauritius

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CREOLES AID COOLIES ;

OB,

FIVE YEARS IN MAURITIUS.

REV. PATRICK BEATON, M.A.

LATE MINISTER OF ST ANDREW'S CHTJRCH, AND SECRETARY OF THE
BIBLE SOCIETY, MAURITIUS.

LONDON: .
JAMES NTSBET AND CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.

M.DCCC.LTX.

Ness

EDINUtTRGH :

BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PRINTERS,

PAUL'S WORK.

V'

TO

GENERAL MUERAY HAY,

WHO, WHILE IN COMMAND OF THE FORCES AT MAURITIUS,
IN HIS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CAPACITY
AS AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN,
WON GOLDEN OPINIONS FROM ALL CLASSES OF THE COMMUNITY,

^fjfg TOorft

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY HIS FRIEND AND FORMER MINISTER,

THE AUTHOR.

'y

PREFACE.

In this work, which embodies the experience
derived from a residence of more than five
years in the colony, the author has endea-
voured to present a lively but faithful picture
of the impressions produced upon a stranger by
the mixed and motley population of Mauri-
tius ; to describe the working of slavery, and
the present condition of the ex-slave popula-
tion and their descendants ; to trace the con-
nexion between the present prosperity of the
colony, and the introduction of Coolie immi-
grants from India ; and to point out the
advantages which it possesses as a field for
missionary labour amoDg these men. If the

VI PEEFACE.

publication of this work result in engaging
the sympathies of the religious world at home
in behalf of these Coolies, by attracting atten-
tion to their spiritual destitution, and to the
powerful influence which their conversion to
Christianity may exercise upon the future
evangelisation of India, and thus lead, in any
measure, to the extension of the means already
in operation for bringing the gospel within
their reach, the author's object will be fully
accomplished.

London, August 1858.

i\

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

First Impressions— Pieter Both— Pouce—Prafi^MC— Harbour— Creoles
—Port Louis— Setting Sun — Mingled Feelings on Leaving Ship —
First Night at Port Louis— Nudity of Natives— Coolies— Indian
Women — Diversity of Race — Future Language and Population —
Absorption of White Population— Its Cause— Sugar Boats, Bags,
and Brokers — Fictitious Dock-Warrants — Coolie Porters — General
Ignorance of the English Language — Unfitness for English Institu-
tions— Place d'Armes— Merchants— Carriages and Carrioles— Go-
vernment-House — Principal Buildings — Hotels — Non-Observance of
Sabbath — First Breakfast Ashore — Churches in Port Louis,

Pp. 1—40

CHAPTER XL

Scarcity of Houses in Port Louis — Hospitality — Paraplemousses Gardens
— Paul and Virginia — Their Monuments — Dearaess of Living —
Traditional Furniture— Chinamen — Origin of Slavery — Execution of
a Dutch Slave — Ruling Passion Strong at Death — First French
Colonists — La Bourdonnais — The Slave Trade — Romantic Incident
— Abolition of Slavery by the French Republicans — Re-established by
Napoleon— Slavery under the British Government— Treatment of
Slaves by the French — St Pierre — Sonnerat — Baron Grant — Harrow-
ing Sufferings of the Slaves — The Code Noir — Cruelty of Female
Slaveholders — State of Crime among the Slaves — Marriage and its
Punishment — Superstition — Language, Specimen of— Emancipation
of the Slaves — Its Consequences — Present Condition of the Ex-slave
Population and their Descendants, . . . Pp. 41 — 93

CHAPTER IIL

The Coloured Population — Their Origin — Their Former Subjection —
Prejudices against them — Their Exclusion from Tiociety — Insult
offered to them in 1857 — Government Pupils — Advantages of Home
Education — Morality — Truthfulness of Character — Coloured Women

Vlll CONTENTS.

— Their Taste for Music — Theodore Hook — White Creole Popula-
tion— Their Former Character — The Planters — The Creoles of Port
Louis — Their Character — Creole Shopkeepers — State of Morals— r
Creole Ladies — Marriage — Divorce — Gay Season — British Popula-
tion— Causes of Estrangement between them and the Creoles —
Duelling — The Press — Unfitness of the Colony for British Institu-
tions, Pp. 94—124

CHAPTER IV.

Supposed Healthiness of Mauritius — Quarantine — Want of Cleanliness
— Increase of Population — Cholera Foretold in 1851 — Absence of
Hurricanes — Cholera in 1854 — First Outbreak in the Civil Prison —
The Sultany — Erratic Course of Cholera — Drunkards and Chinamen
Escape — Strange Cause Assigned for Cholera — Panic in Port Louis
— Cholera Contagious — Second Outbreak at Flacq — Its Cause —
Massacre of Coolies on Flat Island — Second Outbreak of Cholera
in 1856 — Licentiousness of the Press — Arrival of the Shah Jehan —
Mob at Grovernment House — The Friend of India — Suspension of
Coolie Emigration — Increase of Disease in Mauritius — Influence
of Climate — Monotony of Life the Cause of Disease — The Re-
medy, Pp. 125-164

CHAPTER V.

Sugar Exported from Mauritius in 1835 and 1856 — Cause of this In-
crease— Introduction of Coolie Immigrants from India — Mode of
Engaging them — Their Pay, Rations, and Treatment — Dress —
Diseases — Domestic Servants — Language — Religion — The Yaraseh
— Causes of Crime — Want of Religious Instruction — Disproportioiv
between the Sexes — Coolies Ready to Receive Christianity — Mauri-
tius as a Missionary Field — First Eiforts Made to Evangelise the
Immigrants — Report to Madras Bible Society — The Indian and
African Character Contrasted, Pp. 165-^208

CHAPTER VL

Arrival of the Rev. David Fenn — His Interest in the Coolie Mission —
Mr Taylor's Second Report — Attempt to Identify Protestantism
with Freemasonry — The Freemasons Excommunicated by the Roman
Catholic Bishop — Coolies Neglected by the Church of Rome — Causes
of this Neglect — Connexion between Mauritius as a Missionary
Field and the Future Evangelisation of India— Deplorable Condi-

CONTENTS. IX

tion of Christian Coolies— Mr Taylor's Third Report— Arrival of the
Bishop of Mauritius— Mr Taylor's Ordination— John Baptist-
Service for Bengalee Immigrants — Amusing; Anecdote of an Indian
Servant— Coolie Colporteurs— Grood Effected by Reading the Scrip-
tures—Striking Proof of this— Honesty of Christian Servants-
Antipathy against them— Coolie Children Uneducated— An Ex-
perimental School— Its Failure, and the Cause— Mauritius as a
Field for Coolie Education— A Native School— Success of Experi-
mental School — Grovernment Ordinance enforcing Education,

Pp. 209—250

CHAPTER VII.

State of Education in Mauritius — Effects of Slavery— Planters' Ideas of
Education — Want of it among the Lower Classes — Proportion of the
Uneducated to the Educated — Evil Effects of Ignorance — The Royal
College — Private Schools — Government Schools — Roman Catholic
Schools — Necessity of an Extended System of Education— ^^^^itera
d'Industrie — Compulsory Education — State of Religion — Romanism
at the Capture of the Island— The Fite de Dieu — Present Condition
of Romanism— Superstition of the Lower Classes — The Roman
Catholic Bishop — Freemasonry — The Church of England— Her For-
mer Position in the Colony — The Rev. L. Banks — Mission at Bam-
bou — Chapels at Moka and Plaiues Wilhelmes— Visit of the Bishop
of Ceylon — Rev. Gideon de Jeux — State of Religion at Seychelles —
Dr Ryan Appointed Bishop of Mauritius in 1855 — London Mission-
ary Society — Rev. J. Le Biuu — The Church of Scotland — The
Mauritius Church Association — The Auxiliary Bible Society — The
Seamen's Friend Society, Pp. 251—282

CHAPTER VIIL

Madagascar, Description of— Mission of 1816— Progress of Christianity
— Death of King Radama in 1828— National Assembly of 1835 —
Per^ieeution of the Native Christians — Their Fortitude and Faith —
Attack on the Fort of Tamatave — The Queen's Answer to the
Governor of Mauritius— Conversion of Prince Rakoto— Persecution
of 18 i9 — Proclamation against Christianity — Martyrs in Madagas-
car— Report of the Queen's Resignation — Visit of the Rev. W.
Ellis and Mr Cameron — Renewal of Traffic Between Madagascar
and Mauritius — The Queen's Letter — Church of Rome in Madagas-
car— Report of a French Armament for the Invasion of the Island
—Fresh Persecution of the Christians— Conclusion, Pp. 283—296

/:

V/

CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

CHAPTER I.

First Impressions— Pieter Both— Pouce— Pra%M« — Harbour— Creoles
— Port Louis — Setting Sun — Mingled Feelings on leaving Ship —
First Night at Port Louis — Nudity of Natives — Coolies — Indian
Women — Diversity of Race — Future Language and Population-
Absorption of White Population — Its Cause — Sugar Boats, Bags,
and Brokers — Fictitious Dock- warrants — Coolie Porters — Greneral
Ignorance of the English Language — Unfitness for English Institu-
tions— Place d'Armes — Merchants — Carriages and Carrioles— Go-
vernment House — Principal Buildings — Hotels — Non-observance of
Sabbath — First Breakfast Ashore — Churches in Port Louis.

The appearance of Mauritius, as you approach it by sea,
is very striking and romantic. It is intersected in diffe-
rent directions by chains of mountains, most of which
are covered with verdure to the summit, and end in the
most fantastic peaks, as if Nature had been in a merry
mood at the moment of their creation. Sometimes
the peaks of the Pieter Both and Pouce are seen from
an immense distance at sea, more especially when the
' lower parts of the island are covered with vapour. The
mountain-tops then assume the form of eyiies, perched
A

2 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

aloft amongst the clouds ; but when the wind rises and
the vapour passes away, land is no longer visible, and
the mariner is tempted to believe himself, the victim of
some magical delusion. The Pouce derives its name
from its resemblance to the thumb, and the Pieter Both
from a silly Dutchman, who, trying to scale its heights,
met with his death in the attempt.* Others, however,
have tried the ascent with better success than the
heavy Dutchman, and the Union Jack has twice floated
on its rocky peak, to the disgust of the hahitans,
who believed it inaccessible. An interesting account
of the ascent of the mountain was published in the
Penny Magazine by Colonel Lloyd, who was for
some years Surveyor-General in Mauritius, and died of
cholera in the Crimea. The three principal ranges of
mountains were formerly covered with wood, the most
of which has now been cut down, and the inhabitants
complain, with reason, that this destruction has had a
pernicious effect upon the climate and fruitfulness of
the colony. Latterly the Govermnent have appointed
an Inspector of Woods and Forests, with a number of
gardes champetres under his command ; but the evil
cannot now be remedied ; and, even with this precau-
tion, the quantity of wood on the island is diminishing
every year. There is a corresponding diminution in
the fall of rain ; and unless something be done through
planting, and more stringent measures for the preser-
vation of the trees, the cultivation of sugar, the staple '
article of produce, may at some future period be aban-

* Others derive the name from a Dutch Admiral.

TOWN AND HARBOUR OF PORT LOUIS. 3

doned, and Mauritius become a barren rock, inhabited
only by a few fishermen. The town of Port Louis is
situated in a species of hollow, surrounded on three
sides by mountains, or nearly so. Its situation is very
low, and the excellent harbour could alone have led to
the selection of its site. Its superiority over that of
Grand Port is evident, and the only ground for surprise
is, that the Dutch, a maritime people, should ever have
selected Grand Port as their capital, in preference to
Port Louis. A ship on arriving is obliged to lie at
anghor at the Bell Buoy until the visiting doctor has
come on board to examine the bill of health, and given
the ship what is technically called pratique. Although
we arrived at five P.M., and this official ought, in virtue
of his office, to visit all ships that arrive before six, we
had no visit from him before eight o'clock the follow-
ing morning.

The harbour of Port Louis affords safe and ample
anchorage to ships of the largest burden. It is, there-
fore, very convenient for those ships bound for or from
India that fall short of provisions, or have been caught
in one of those hurricanes with which this quarter of
the globe is periodically visited. Two patent-slip
docks have been built, in which the largest vessels can
receive repairs.' Ships requiring such repairs are
obliged to put in at Mauritius, or to return to Bombay,
there being no other intermediate port suitable to their
•wants. Hence it is no unusual thing, after a hurricane
at sea, for the harbour of Port Louis to be crowded
with English, French, and American ships, undergoing

4 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

or waiting for repairs, and the profits made by the
proprietors of these docks are enormous. The mer-
chants to whom these ships are consigned receive a
very handsome commission ; and, perhaps, some of
them regard a good thorough-paced hurricane with
much the same feelings as a farmer, with a large stock
of grain in his barns, looked upon a heavy fall of snow
in harvest — " Oh, my friends, let us be thankful for this
precious weather.'' The harbour has something of
the shape of a horse-shoe, with the cleft or open part
towards the sea. It is one of the best and safest
harbours in the East, but sadly neglected. Every
species of filth is allowed to accumulate in it, rendering
its neighbourhood very unwholesome, and offensive to
more senses than one. Fever and cholera find appro-
priate abodes in the hovels situated near the Trou
Eanfaron and its other precincts. It is asserted also,
and the fact appears to be undeniable, that it has been
gradually diminishing in depth, owing to neglect in
clearing away the debris that accumulates in its bed,
more especially during the period of the heavy rains.
Besides the Eiver Lataniers, which enters the harbour
in several small streamlets, there are other rivulets of
smaller importance, which empty themselves into the
basin. During the rainy season, the sides of the
mountains and the banks of these streams are washed
by the torrents that descend — the loose earth, sand,
and even stones of a large size, are swept into their
beds, and borne along by the force of the current ;
and thus a considerable quantity of solid matter is

CREOLE BOATMEN. 5

conveyed every season to the harbour, for the removal
of which no adequate measures have been adopted.
The accumulation of this debris has been so great
within a few years, that where there were twenty-four
feet of water there a.re now only sixteen ; and unless
some steps be adopted to check this growing evil, it
may be that, in the course of time, none but ships of
the smallest size will be able to find an entrance.

A boat came alongside soon after our arrival, and offer-
ed to land passengers. Of course, this was very tanta-
lising, as none could leave the ship before the doctor's
visit It contained the first specimens of the Creole
race that I had seen ; and as they were fair represen-
tatives of a class, I may describe them. Their com-
plexion was a rich olive-brown, their eyes dark and
intelligent, their features well-formed and regular, their
faces long rather than oval, and their hair dark and
curly — a sure proof of the presence of African blood.
Their figures were long and lithe, giving one the im-
pression of activity rather than of strength, and so
erect as to prove that they had little experience of
severe physical labour. They wore jackets of a blue
Indian cloth, shirts of dazzling whiteness, and neat
straw-hats, which they politely and gracefully raised
from their heads when addressed. They addressed me
in something like the following terms : — " Si Monsieur
content ddbarquer, nous voule prenne li dans le
bateau. ""* I 'could only shake my head in token of
refusal.

* " If Monsieur wishes to go ashore, we'll take him in the boat."

6 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

The first view of Port Louis gives you the idea of a
large garden, with houses scattered through it at long
intervals, with a few public buildings peeping through
the foliage. This effect results from the trees and gar-
dens with which most of the better class of houses are
surrounded. Facing the harbour are the Custom-house
and Civil Hospital, large white buildings, with no pre-
tensions to architectural beauty. Near the Civil Hos-
pital is the lofty square tower (one of the first objects
seen on entering the harbour) of St Andrew's Church.
In the centre of the town stands Government House,
which the uninitiated would naturally take to be a large
sugar-store, from its ugliness and utter want of archi-
tectural ornament. Farther on, in the direction of the
Champ de Mars, is the Eoman Catholic Cathedral, a
solid, compact building, of no particular style of archi-
tecture ; and near it, but more to the riejht, the Endish
Cathedral, originally a powder magazine, but now con-
verted to more peaceful purposes. On the right is a
suburb, composed of miserable-looking huts, extending
along the base of the signal mountain, inhabited by
negroes, and known as Black Town. To the left another
suburb, stretching out for nearly half-a-mile in the
direction of Pamplemousses, the favourite abode of the
Indian population, known as Malabar Town. On the
right the town is overlooked by the signal mountain,
on the left by the citadel; while behind is the green
expanse of the Champ de Mars, encompassed with neat
villas, and the valley of the Pouce, with its old military
road leading to the Chateau d'Eau. There are two forts,

SUNSET IN THE TEOPICS. 7

for the protection of the entrance of the harbour, and
two martello towers erected at the mouth of Grand
Eiver. The first impression of Port Louis is not very-
favourable. It seems an accumulation of houses and
huts heaped together without order or plan, and is des-
titute of any of those public buildings which, by their
splendour and beauty, give an air of interest to the
smaller provincial towns in Europe. It reminds one
of the descriptions of Eome in the days of Romulus, and
its population is even more mixed and motley than that
which flocked to the newly-erected capital of Latium.

All at once the sun sunk beneath the western horizon,
lighting up in his departure the summit of the Pouce..
which seemed pointing aloft in admiration of his beauty,
and tinting with his golden rays the statue of Victoria
with her crown and coronation robes, or rather the
striking resemblance to her Majesty assumed by the
peak of the Pieter Both, when seen from the sea. The
setting of the tropical sun suggests the lines of the poet
— lines which prove that genius can realise, through the
power of imagination alone, scenes described by others,
with the same vivid truthfulness as if they were the
objects of actual perception. Millions daily see the
setting of the tropical sun, but none have described it
so well as Scott, who saw it only with the mind's eye : —

" Mine be the eve of tropic sun —
No pale gradations quench his ray.
No twilight dews his wrath allay.
With disk, like battle-target red.
He rushes to his burning bed,
Dyes the wide wave with bloody light.
Then sinks at once — and all is nisrht."*

8 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

One's feelings, on arriving in a new country, are gene-
rally of a very mixed character. You feel as if you
were about to cast off all old associations and to enter
upon a new mode of existence. Old memories of kind
faces, loving hearts, and scenes long past and appa-
rently forgotten, come rushing tumultuously upon the
mind, as if they felt that their hold was loosening, and
that they must speedily give place to others. With
curiosity to examine the land of your sojourning for a
time, there is a yearning of the heart for a land still
dearer, and even the old ship, which you may have daily
characterised as a tub, for her slowness, is left with
something of regret. You feel like the patriarch of old,
who went out not knowing whither he went ; and you
are ignorant of what fate may be in store for you. You
have a memento of the uncertainty of life and all its
plans in the cemetery close at hand, where many brave
young British hearts, once beating high with courage
and hope as much as yours, are now mouldering to dust
on a foreign strand, with none to lament them. You
hear the wailing sound of the wind passing through the
filaos* those graceful and appropriate ornaments of the
city of the dead. In the days of ancient mythology an
Ovid might have represented them as the mothers of
the dead weeping over them, and changed by some
pitying god into their present shape.

But now the evening gun has fired, and its reverbera-
tions, after being caught up and repeated by the moun-
tains behind, like the rolling of thunder, have died away

* The casuarina of Madagascar.

ASTKONOMY, ASTROLOGY, AND SABAISM. 9

in the distance. The merry song of the sailors heaving
the anchor has ceased. The silence of night is only in-
terrupted by the dirge-like song of some watchful Coolie,
by the beating of a distant tom-tom, and a howling of
dogs, so general and so long continued, as to tempt the
belief that I had arrived at some island inhabited only
by those sagacious animals, such as some of our early
mariners have described.

It was in vain that I tried to sleep. Between heat,
mosquitoes, the howling of dogs, and the excitement
resulting from the circumstances in which I found
myself, my nervous system became so excited as effec-
tually to banish sleep from my eyelids. I had no help
for it, but to walk the deck till the report of the gun
from the citadel announced the approach of morn.
The night was soft and beautiful. The clear bright
moon, with softened rays, left a track of silver upon
the ocean, while she dimly disclosed the mountains in
all their romantic beauty. The firmament shone forth
with its stars, surpassing in brilliancy those seen in
northern climes, and explaining how the East gave
birth to astronomy, astrology, and sabaism. One can
understand in gazing upon such a scene how the
Orientals, with their dim traditional ideas of Deity,
in the patriarchal age, when beholding the moon walk-
ing in brightness, felt their hearts enticed, and their
mouths disposed to kiss their hands in adoration of
the queen of heaven.

But now it is eight o'clock, and the doctor and
landing-officer have come on board. Our bill of

10 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

health is examined, and found satisfactory. Gracious
permission is given to us to land, of which we speedily
avail ourselves. A boat, rowed by two coloured men,
with crispy hair and sepia complexions, speedily con-
veys me ashore. Their charge for rowing me about
a quarter of a mile is so exorbitant as to give some
air of truth to what I had previously been told, that
no man, black or white, in Mauritius, will open his
mouth to answer even in a monosyllable for less
than a dollar. On landing, the first thing that strikes
a stranger is the primitive manner in which the in-
habitants are dressed. He sees the wharf thronged
with men occupied in different ways, whose move-
ments are quite unimpeded by those tightly fitting
garments which are worn by Europeans. He is not
disposed to form a high opinion of the refinement or
civilisation of the inhabitants of Mauritius, from the
specimens that are first brought under his notice.
He must not confound these half-naked, savage-look-
ing men, with the Creoles of Mauritius, or do them
the injustice to suppose that the art of dress has
reached no higher degree of perfection. He must
reserve his opinion, and mingle for some time in Mau-
ritius society, and he shall yet see coats such as Stultz
might have cut, and toilettes so perfect, that they
might do honour to the Chaussde d'Antin or the pro-
cession of Longchamps. Those scantily-clad, turbaned
wretches, whom in our ignorance we have mistaken
for the refined and highly civilised Mauritians, are
Coolies from the banks of the Ganges, brought hither

COOLIE LABOURERS AND THEIR WIVES. 11

to be hewers of wood and drawers of water ; to do
the work of Helots for three years, and to be so, all
but in name. Those swarthy Orientals, so thinly clad,
are the muscles and sinews of the Mauritius body
politic. They are the secret source of all the wealth,
luxury, and splendour with which the island abounds.
There is not a carriage that rolls along the well-
macadamised Chaussde, or a robe of silk worn by the
fair Mauritian, to the purchase of which the Indian
has not, by his labour, indirectly contributed. It is
from the labour of his swarthy body in the cane-fields
that gold is extracted more plenteously than from the
diggings of Ballarat. Respect that swarthy stranger,
for without him Mauritius would soon be stripped of
its wealth, and left with scarcely sufficient exports to
procure food for its rice-eating, cigar-smoking inhabit-
ants. We pass the poor Coolies (to return to them
again) with the simple reflection, that if half of this
be true, their masters might procure them a more
decent clothing, and thus avoid shocking the delicacy
of every lady that lands on their shores.

The Indian women wear a dress which seems to be
composed of one piece of cotton cloth, wrapped round
the middle, forming a short petticoat reaching to the
knee, with the ends flung loosely over the shoulders,
so as to cover the breast. They appear a degraded
race of beings, with the worst passions painted in
their coarse, revolting, unwomanly features. The only
redeeming feature in their character is their seeming
fondness for their children. These are not carried on

12 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

the back, or in the arms, as in Europe, but perched
astride on the left haunch, which is protruded for the
purpose of supporting them, and there they sit grinning
and shewing their white teeth, while the mothers
waddle along with their bodies in shape something
like the letter C.

To the European, ignorant of the types and cos-
tumes of the different Oriental races, nothing can
be more striking than the appearance of the Mauri-
tians. The first impression of surprise and wonder
speedily wears off, and the mind becomes accustomed
to the diversity of language, colour, and race. But
on first landing, if at all of an imaginative cha-
racter, he may conceive himself in the capital of the
Caliphs, and surrounded with all the witchery of
Eastern romance. So overpowering is the feeling of
novelty, that if a mute were to sign to him to follow,
he would follow as a matter of course; and if after
being conducted through gardens bubbling with foun-
tains, and loaded with golden fruit, he found himself in
a bath-room, floored with marble, he would resign him-
self without resistance to the hands of the attendants,
ready to untwist every joint of his body in the process
of shampooing. He sees faces rendered familiar to his
imagination in childhood by the charming pages of the
Arabian Nights, or such as the old masters have given
to the heroes and the patriarchs of a still more wonder-
ful volume. He sees Arabs from the shores of the
Red Sea, whose dress, features, and language have
undergone little change from the friction of forty cen-

STEIKING DIVEESITY OF EACE. 13

turies — who retain, in the midst of civilised life, some-
thing of the freedom of the desert — and who cherish the
reminiscences of their former nomad life by surround-
ing themselves with the horses of their native land.
He sees haughty Mohammedans, descendants of a race
who conquered India before the English flag was ever
unfurled on its shores — men tall of stature, muscular
in build, with regular features, lofty brows, bull-like
necks, and flowing beards. He sees Indians from the
burning plains of Hindostan, weak and effeminate in
frame, soft and gentle in expression, fawning and ser-
vile in address, with their dark, curling locks, longer
and glossier than those that adorned the heads of the
Roman youth during the reign of the later emperors.
He sees Chinamen from the Celestial Empire, attracted
to the abode of the barbarian by the sacra fames
auri — a grotesque-looking race, with long faces, wide
mouths, flattened noses, high cheek-bones, and curious
eyes, shaped like button-holes, wearing trousers of the
same portentous size as Peter the Headstrong, with each
leg large enough to contain the whole body, and abjur-
ing long locks, save a single one on the crown of the
head, plaited and pendulous, or twisted round the head,
according to the taste of the wearer. He sees dark
descendants of Ham, of aU types and countries inha-
bited by that servile race : ex- apprentices, fast sinking
into the grave, often halt and lame and maimed, bear-
ing in their decrepid, toil-worn bodies a stronger argu-
ment against slavery than ever issued from the eloquent
lips of Wilberforce or Brougham ; free negroes, the

14 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

offspring of slaves, plump, shiny, and good-humoured,
but devoid of ambition, foresight, honesty and truth ;
Malagashes, of two different nations, the one agreeing
in physical organisation with their African brethren,
except that the skull is smaller and the lips thinner —
the other a fine, bold, athletic race, with complexions as
light as the Spaniards of the south, and little of the
usual negro characteristics in their features — faithful,
affectionate, and grateful if kindly treated, but turbu-
lent, passionate, and revengeful when smarting under a
sense of injury; Mozambiques, short, broad-chested, and
muscular, with features expressive of coarse sensuality,
and indifference to everything save the gratification of
their immediate wants ; and here and there an Abys-
sinian, tall, erect, and handsome, with aquiline features,
approaching nearer to the European type than those of
any other of the dark races of Africa. Besides the
Hindoos, he sees other stray specimens of the Asiatic
races : Lascar seamen, with round caps, and cotton
petticoats, resembling in shape a Highlander's kilt,
worn over the trousers ; Batavians, dwarfish, but mus-
cular, with features a compromise between the Hindoo
and the Chinese ; Armenians, with bushy black beards,
and olive complexions, wearing conical caps of sheep-
skin, with the wool worn outside ; Cingalese, differing
little, but still discernible, from the Hindoos ; and
Parsees, from Bombay, fair, sleek, and intelligent, with
flowing robes of snowy white, and conical caps reclin-
ing rather than worn on the back of the head — a fine
race, the mercantile aristocracy of India and the East.

INTEEMIXTUEE OF THE DIFFERENT RACES. 15

Europe also has added its contingent to swell the
motley assembly : bronzed Frenchmen, with a forest
of hair about their faces, and a frequent sacr^ on
their lips ; stray specimens of Italian and German
patriots, exiles for their country's good ; English mer-
chants, principally " old salters,'' that have exchanged
the log-book for the ledger, tropical Trunnions, with
many oddities and much warmth of heart — officers and
soldiers, looking wan and dissipated, often consciously
killing themselves with hard living, and caring little
how soon the goal is reached — and last, but not least,
the heads of civil departments, grave men, impressed
with a sense of their own importance, having an air of
greater wisdom than is ever given to mortal man to
possess, bearing the burden of the State upon their
shoulders, and conscious of its weight. Other stray
waifs of humanity complete the picture, the effect of
which is still more heightened by the mixture of Creoles,
composing the coloured population, with more or
less of African blood in their viens — a distinct class,
forming a sort of imperium in imperio, equally
removed from the pure black and white population,
with whom they neither marry nor are given in mar-
riage.

Such is the picture presented to the eye by the
mixed and motley population of Mauritius — a picture
unique in itself, such as no other country in the world
can supply. There is a great problem being gradually
solved by the intermixture of these races, differing so
widely in every respect, and what language or man

16 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

shall emerge from the seething mass, it is difficult to
say. We are certain, that the future language of
Mauritius will puzzle the philologists of coming ages,
and that it will require more than the lingual acquire-
ments of an Admirable Crichton, or of the Italian
cardinal* who spoke twenty-four languages, to trace
its component parts to the sources from which they
were derived. In after ages it may afford an argument
in proof of all languages having been derived from one
stamm-sprache, or mother -tongue, inasmuch as it will
be found to have taxed almost all languages in its own
composition. But who the " coming man '' of Mauritius
may be, we cannot tell; we only hope that from ele-
ments so diverse, there may not come forth a Franken-
stein. One thing is certain, that the Asiatics, the
Africans, and the people of colour, are increasing so
rapidly as to make the white French population com-
paratively insignificant in point of numbers ; and as a
large proportion of the latter are labouring under con-
ditions unfavourable to the propagation of the human
race, it is not improbable that in the course of time
they may die out, or be absorbed in the coloured
population. The latter are rapidly increasing in num-
bers and wealth, while the white descendants of the
original settlers have, in many cases, sunk into poverty.
It has been calculated that three-fourths of the im-
moveable property in the colony is now in possession
of the coloured people, and the cause of this transference
is to be found in the social habits of the colonists.

* Mezzofanti.

LIVING COM ME rjA M^ME. 17

The negresses appear to have always had stronger
attractions for them than the females of their own race
and colour, and as soon as the passions begin to mani-
fest themselves in the young men, connexions are
formed which result in increasing the coloured popula-
tion. Often these connexions are only dissolved by
death, and both parties are as faithful to each other as
if they were united by the marriage vow. The men
who form these ties are rarely looked upon with
favour by the better class of their own country-
women, who can scarcely be expected to accept with
pleasure the place in their hearts and homes for-
merly occupied by a race whom they despise. Thus
they are content (to use the local phrase) to live and
to die comme ga meme, and after death they be-
queath their property and their name to their co-
loured offspring. It is in this way, principally, that
the gradual transference of property has been effected,
and so general and widely spread are the connexions to
which we allude, that it is probable that in the course
of a century or two, the white population will be
absorbed by the coloured, or that the few remaining
descendants of the former lords of the soil will become
the servants of a class whom they detest. The prospect
of this coming change is sometimes gloated over with
savage pleasure by the organ of the coloured people ;
and should the day ever come, there will be a fearful
reckoning for long years of oppression, hatred, and
ridicule. It must be admitted, that by their servile
imitation of their former masters, in dress, manners,

B

18 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

and social intercourse, and the failures necessitated by
the unfavourable position in which they are placed,
they too often expose themselves to the shafts of ridi-
cule, with which their adversaries are ever ready to
wound their vanity. The latter, instead of trying to
improve their manners, or affording them an oppor-
tunity of attaining that refinement, the absence of
which forms the subject of their ridicule, carefully
debar them from their salons, and taboo them as
unworthy of their notice. This social ostracism is
keenly felt and resented, and the gratuitous insults
heaped uj)on them by the organ of the old French
party, have sunk deep into the hearts and memories
of a race remaikable for vanity, and ambitious of
social equality. Eecently they were consoled by the
promise held out in the print to which we allude —
" Lorsque vous aurez appris le jargon social, vous aurez
I'entree des salons."'* This promise implied, of course,
that at the present moment they were a set of savages,
ignorant even of the language employed in the social
intercourse of refined society. It is such insults as
these that widen the breach between two classes that
speak the same language, and have much of the same
blood in their veins, and that would inevitably bring
on a civil war, were there not enough of British bayonets
and British batons to preserve peace.

The wharf at the landing-place is surrounded by boats
of a large size, used for conveying the sugar to the

* " When you have learned the language of society, you will be admitted
into our drawing-rooms."

SUGAE BAGS AND BROKERS. 19

ships. The sugar is contained in bags manufactured
from the leaf of the vacouas {pandanus utilis), found
in abundance in the neighbouring island of Madagascar,
and also in Mauritius. The usual quantity contained
in these bags is about one hundred and fifty pounds.
When a planter has sugar to dispose of, he sends a spe-
cimen to his broker in Port Louis, who submits it to
the inspection of the different merchants, and sells it at
the current price. These brokers form a very flourish-
ing community; and as they generally dabble a little in
bills, and are not averse to usury, the most of them are
comparatively wealthy. If there should be no demand
for sugar, or if the broker thinks that a rise will soon
take place, the sugar is stowed away in large stores
built for the purpose near the harbour. The planter
may be in want of money, and to raise the sum which
he requires he has recourse to what are called dock-
warrants. He obtains a document signed by the
keeper of the store to the effect that he has so much
sugar in his keeping, and through this document he
tries to raise the money. To make the honesty of the
storekeepers doubly sure, and to prevent fraud, every
one, on entering upon this business, is bound to find
sureties to the amount of two thousand pounds, which
sum may be forfeited. Such a system is liable to many
objections, and there can be no doubt but that money
is often raised on fictitious dock-warrants. A striking
proof of this recently occurred. A man of the name

of B kept a large sugar store. His character stood

high, and many poor people, tempted by the high rate

20 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

of interest which he offered, entrusted their small
savings to his keeping. He formed the acquaintance

of one M , a sugar broker. M being in want

of money, persuaded B to sign a fictitious dock-
warrant. B consented, on the condition that a simi-
lar application should never be made to him again,

to which condition M promised faithfully to adhere.

Soon after, M applied for the same favour. B ,

fearful of detection, reminded him of his promise, and

declined. M , who seems to have been a sort of

Mauritian Mephistopheles, coolly remarked that he was
in his power, and that if he made any difficulty about
obliging him, he would at once denounce him to the

authorities. We know not whether B 's feelings

corresponded with those ascribed by Goethe to Faust —

" A good man in the direful grasp gf ill,
The consciousness of right retaineth still."

Possibly he was not a good man. If he was, and re-
tained " the consciousness of right," it had very little
practical influence on his conduct. Facilis descensus
averni: he sunk deeper and deeper, till discovery be-
came inevitable. To escape the consequences, the two
associates in crime embarked on board a small vessel
belonging to one of them, taking with them the fruits

of their dishonesty, and set sail for Madagascar. B

left a letter, addressed to one of his dupes, in which he

acknowledged his guilt, and declared M to have

been his evil genius. So, doubtless, he had ; but it is

written in a book which B and his compatriots

affect very much to despise, that if we resist the devil

COOLIES AT THE WHARF. 21

he will flee from us. He failed to resist the first ap-
proach of evil, and therefore he fell. A small vessel,
with an officer of justice and a few constables, was sent
in pursuit. They discovered the Joker at Madagas-
car, and took possession of her. They found on board

a considerable quantity of gold, and M labouring

under an attack of fever. B had been left on shore.

They landed, and were proceeding to apprehend him,
when he appealed to the Hovas, reminding them that
the British would not allow them to seize their fugitives
when they reached Mauritius. The appeal was success-
ful; and the officer of police was obliged to return
without his prey. It was afterwards reported that they
were dead, but this is doubtful. After some years they
may yet return in safety to Mauritius, where successful
roguery is sure to meet with a large share of sympathy
and admiration.

On landing at the wharf, the stranger finds it crowded
with Coolies carrying the sugar from the sheds to the
boats which convey it to the ships. He cannot but be
struck with the miserable appearance and melancholy
expression of those poor immigrants. They look as if
a smile had never visited their dreary countenances,
and the effect of their woeful visages is heightened by
the dull monotonous chant with which they accompany
their labours. The sight of these half-naked savages
does not produce a pleasing impression, and it is
felt that civilisation, with its many blessings, has
failed as yet to extend to them its humanising in-
fluences.

22 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

On landing, there are none of those convenient ap-
pendages to hotels, known as " touters,'' to receive the
traveller with eager offers of hospitality, and to laud
the superior advantages of their respective establish-
ments. It may be the effect of modesty, or of a deep-
rooted confidence in their own merits, but the land-
lords of Mauritius have not yet attained to the dignity
of " touters.'' They think, perhaps, that as good wine
requires no bush, a good house should stand on its o\\ti
merits; and while prepared to receive all comers, they
despise to do as their brother Bonifaces in Europe —
to send forth to the highways and the harbours in
search of travellers. This assumption of dignity,
which extends to all the different classes of tradesmen,
is extremely inconvenient to the traveller who lands
beneath the scorching rays of a vertical sun, amid
clouds of dust and the jabbering of unknown tongues.
He finds a negro basking in the sun, enjoying the
highest amount of happiness of which the African ima-
gination can conceive — the dolce far niente. Know-
ing that he is in a British colony, and addressing a
British subject, he points to his carpet-bag, and re-
quests to have it carried to a hotel. The British sub-
ject rolls his eyes in a manner that , must try the
powers of tension of the optic nerve, and answers
with a grin, "Na pas conne TAnglais.''* Faintly re-
membering that this colony some fifty years ago was
in the possession of France, he is astonished to find
even one inhabitant retaining an imperfect recollection

* " Don't know English,"

BRITISH SUBJECTS.

%'

of the French language, and looks upon him as a sort
of fossil remain of an extinct nationality. He addresses
himself to a second, a third, a fourth, and receives the
same invariable answer, " N'a pas conne T Anglais/'
He looks in vain for an Englishman; they seem as
rare, or more so, than black swans. He addresses him-
self to the Coolies, British subjects d double titre, and
is answered with a "Main nahin junta"* by the more
recent arrivals; by the old immigrants, with the ever-
recurring " N'a pas conn^,'* varied by all the harmonies
of oriental articulation. Astonished and disappointed,
he is disposed to soliloquise, if the sun would permit,
and to say, What ! Is it possible that the English
language is unknown to all save Englishmen, in a
colony which has been in the possession of England
since 1810? Is it credible that the Coolies even are
taught the barbarous jargon known as Creole, and
that an Englishman, standing in an English colony,
should discern no traces of the English language, of
English manners, and of English civilisation? And
yet can it be true that the inhabitants of this co-
lony, accustomed under their former Governors to
the strictness of military despotism, and knowing
under the present system nothing of that moral and
religious training which alone can fit men for the
enjoyment of rational liberty, divided by colour and
caste into two great factions, which would inevit-
ably cut one another's throats, if British bayonets did
not intervene, and ignoring English institutions and

* "I do not know,"

24 . CREOLES AND COOLIES.

manners, save for the purpose of holding them up to
ridicule and scorn — that the Mauritians, in short (to
those who know them the name expresses much), are
anxious to obtain the political rights freely and
happily accorded to other British colonies, and that
the Home Government has shewn certain symptoms of
a desire to gratify their wishes? Earl Grey's theory of
gradually accustoming the colonies to the exercise of
political rights, till they are fit for emancipation from
the mother-country, can scarcely apply to an island
where, apart from the military, not more than a thou-
sand of the two hundred and thirty thousand inhabit-
ants can speak English, or identify themselves with
England as their mother-country. If he knew, fur-
ther, that trial by jury, and the Municipal Council of
Port Louis, have, to use a local phrase, functioned in
such a manner as to cover these institutions with de-
served ridicule and contempt, he would hesitate which
to admire most, the audacity of the j^opular dema-
gogues in clamouring for institutions of which they
scarcely know the names, or the weakness of the Home
Government in yielding, in any measure, to claims, the
recognition of which would distract the colony with
intestine broils, and lead to endless confusion. A
more enlarged experience would lead him to the con-
clusion, that a pure despotism, mildly but firmly exer-
cised, is the form of government best adapted to this
colony, and that the attempt to engraft free institu-
tions, the gradual growth of centuries, upon a people
descended from slaves and slaveholders, that are still

PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 25

smarting under the remembrance of the lash, or long-
ing to resume it, can only lead to failure and disap-
pointment.

These remarks must be regarded as the fruit of our
traveller's after-experience. "We have left him standing
soliloquising on the wharf at Port Louis. The heat of
the sun leads him for the nonce to think of other
matters. He is sick of salt junk and similar dainties,
and anxious to take his ease in his inn, if he can only
find it. Making a virtue of necessity, he strings
together the few words of French still remaining in
the storehouse of his memory. Fortunately his audi-
ence are not critical, and the exhibition of his purse
awakens the intelligence of one of those hideous
negroes that are always lounging about the wharf and
the bazaar. With some misgivings he consigns his
carpet-bag to his care, and orders him to look out for
a carriage. He conducts him past the Custom-house,
a large white building opposite the wharf. He threads
his way through loaded Coolies, mules, and sugar-carts,
till he reaches the open space, where there is a clump
of ship-chandlers' shops. He passes these, turns the
corner, and reaches the square known as the Place
d'Armes. On the right-hand side, as he advances, is
the military guard-room, the office of the Commissariat,
and Godon's Symposium, where gods, sable as Pluto,
indulge in nectar and ambrosia. On the left are the
Exchange Rooms, where merchants most do congregate,
and seat themselves, or recline, like Tityrus, beneath
the shade of the far-spreading beech or tamarind tree

26 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

— " tenui meditantes avena " — meditating on the
growth and price of the sugar-cane. Some of these,
like honest Dogberry, have had losses in their day, and
found their claims to respect mainly on that circum-
stance. Others would have lost their all, had it not
been found when the day of reckoning came, that, with
a generosity which forms an admirable feature in the
character of Mauritius husbands, they had previously
settled their all on their wives, from whose gentle but
tenacious grasp no avaricious creditors could wrest it.
Shrewd men these merchants of the Place — cunning in
all manner of devices connected with the sugar market
— having a keen eye to the main chance — and hailing
often from the Land of Cakes and the canny capital of
the West. They form the most intelligent and best
educated class in the colony — are hospitable, warm-
hearted, and generous — and though not remarkable for
their religious tendencies, ready to support every chari-
table and religious institution. Few of them, however,
are wealthy, and the wealth of the wealthy few would
appear insignificant beside the colossal fortunes of
some of the merchant princes of England. Few of
these can be regarded as permanent residents in the
colony. Their object is to make a certain sum of
money, and when that object is attained, they betake
themselves to other lands, where money is more valu-
able and life more enjoyable than in Mauritius.

The traveller, standing on the Place, and anxious to
find a vehicle to convey him to his hotel, finds that he has
arrived at the right place. He sees himself surrounded

CARRIAGES AND CARRIOLES, 27

with vehicles of all kinds, from the rude carriole, with
its active and spirited pony, to the luxurious carriage
of Jones, with its elastic cushions, and dashing grays
from the Cape. He is hailed by the title of captain, in
broken English or in pure Hindustanee, by the different
charioteers, who appear to have sacrificed little to the
graces, and to have made a narrow escape from being
downright savages. The better class of carriages are
driven by Creoles, remarkable for reckless driving, and
that insolence and readiness to overreach which seems
to characterise the cabmen of all countries. They sit
at ease upon their boxes, smoking short black pipes or
cheap cigars, and wearing old hats that seem previously
to have decorated the head of some antiquated scare-
crow. They have a remarkable facility in distinguishing
among the passengers those who are likely to become
their fares, and address them in such terms as they think
will be most flattering to their self-love. The fare for
a single person is one shilling to any place within the
bounds of the municipality, and this sum, compared
with other charges, must be regarded as very moderate.
There are nearly three hundred carrioles, or small
spring-carts, on the Place, drawn by powerful little
ponies from Timor or Pegu, and driven by the pro-
prietors, who are usually Indians that have saved a
little money and embarked it in this speculation. The
space which these hardy little creatures can traverse in
the course of a day, with the carrioles loaded with
three or four passengers, is something incredible. The
distance from Port Louis to the Savanne is about

28 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

thirty miles, and yet a Pegu pony has been known to
make the journey and to return in the same day.
Fortunately for their proprietors, there is no society
for the suppression of cruelty to animals in Mauritius,
otherwise these useful animals might meet with better
treatment. If the traveller is troubled with indigestion,
a short drive in a carriole may have a good effect, pro-
vided always that his nerves are in a healthy condition,
and that he sets no overdue value on the preservation
of his life or the safety of his limbs. The driver
makes him clamber up into the ricketty vehicle in the
best way he can, and seats him behind himself. His
head is protected from the rays of a vertical sun by a
rough canopy of wood or tin, supported on iron rods
attached to the framework of the carriole, and his
person is concealed from the gaze of the profanum
vulgus by a species of cotton curtains that have once
been whiter and cleaner. The driver usually wears a
species of head-dress, that forms a sort of compromise
between a bonnet rouge and a Kilmarnock night-cap.
He abjures the use of a whip, but uses in lieu a large
leather strap, which he wields with a dexterity that
might excite the envy of a hedge schoolmaster. The
traveller finds that with carrioles, as with many other
things, ce nest que le premier pas qui coute. The
poor little brute, knowing what is in store for him, is
shy of starting, and plunges and rears, till, overpowered
by the lashes that are showered upon him, and the un-
earthly yells of his savage driver, he at length rushes
forward. The noise is indescribable. The canopy

CREOLE TASTE FOR GAY COLOURS. 29

shakes, the curtains flap, the iron rods rattle, the
springs grate, and the wheels, innocent of oil, creak as
if the whole affair were going to pieces. Coachmen and
riders with restive horses give the carriole as wide a
berth as the poet bestows on Gilpin. The traveller is
suffocated with dust and stupified with noise. In vain
he appeals to his goblin- like driver, who is now in his
element. His enthusiasm reaches its climax at the
sound of a rival carriole approaching. His eye lightens
up

" With that strange joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel,"

and on he drives with the reckless rapidit)^ of the
spectre horseman in Leonore, till he reaches his goal,
or overturns his vehicle, in either of which cases he is
equally unmoved, and if a Mohammedan, acknowledges
the greatness of Allah with pious resignation.

The carriole is a luxury to be enjoyed at an after
period, and the traveller on first landing had better
imitate our example, and drive in a comfortable car-
riage to the Hotel de I'Europe.

The taste of the Creoles for gay colours is shewn in
the painting of their carriages. An Englishman asso-
ciates the quietest colours in dress and equipage with
respectability — a Creole judges of these matters by a
different standard. The carriages on the Place shew
the richness of his imagination by the splendour and
variety of the colours which the painter's brush has
bestowed upon them. A tartan of the Eoyal Stuart
pattern seems to predominate, while a bright blue is

30 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

the next favourite colour. The most of these carriages
belong to men of colour, and the fertility of the African
imagination has been taxed in the selection of new and
startling colours. When the perfect enfranchisement
of the African race has been effected, it will be accom-
panied with a new civilisation, and an original appli-
cation of the arts to the production of new forms that
will startle our sober northern ideas of the beautiful
and the becoming.

At the top of the Place stands Government House,
a large inelegant building, forming three sides of
a square, with the open space facing the harbour.
The ground -floor, built under the direction of La
Bourdonnais, is composed of coral. At the capture
of the island in 1810, the building was in an un-
finished state, and though completed, it cannot be said
to have been improved by the subsequent governors.
It consists of three storeys, with corresponding veran-
dahs, and the public rooms in the centre storey are
large and handsome, with polished floors — ^beautiful to
look at, but dangerous to the equilibrium of the un-
initiated. The offices of the Governor's staff are
situated in the lowest storey, and the uppermost is
composed of sleeping apartments. In front there is a
paved court-yard, with a flagstaff. The hoisting of
the national colours indicates the presence of her
Majesty's representative. In the hot season, the flag
generally remains unfurled, except on "Wednesdays,
when the Council meets. The cool retreats and shady
alleys of Reduit, with its European temperature and

GOVEENMENT HOUSE. 31

beautiful cascade, have far greater attractions than the
stifling atmosphere of this huge barn. The sooner
it is sold to the Town Council, who are anxious to
instal themselves in its lofty apartments, and whose
salamander constitutions can stand any amount of heat,
the more creditable it will be to the representative of
Majesty in Mauritius. A Government House worthy
of the name will then be erected, and form one of the
very few public buildings in this town that have any
claims to architectural beauty.

To the left of Government House is Eoyal Street ; to
the right the Chauss^e. The first of these is a fine
large street, composed of houses built almost entirely
of stone, and used principally as shops or stores. The
Chaussee is narrower and closer, and most of the
houses are built of wood. Wood is less used for build-
ing purposes since 1816, when a considerable portion
of the town was consumed by fire. To the right of
Government House, with the entrance from Koyal
Street, are the offices of the Chief Medical Officer and
of the Colonial Secretary, situated in a long narrow
building, with a stifling atmosphere, and a shabbiness
of aj)pearance reflecting little credit on the Govern-
ment that allows it to be used for such a purpose. To
the left of Government House, facing Government
Street, are the offices of the Auditor-General, the
Treasurer, and the Postmaster — buildings erected on
the strictest principles of economy, and exactly similar
in character to the one already described.

In ascending Government Street, after passing Go-

32 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

vernment House, the first large building to the right
is the Ice-house, the most popular establishment in Port
Louis during the hot season. To the left is the Theatre,
a large unwieldy building, not unlike Government House
in its general cumbrousness of appearance. Around it
may be seen groups of slim youths, dressed in exag-
gerated imitation of the most recent Parisian fashions,
as displayed in the coloured prints in the tailors' win-
dows, smoking cigars manufactured in the colony, and
sold at the moderate charge of one halfpenny each,
discussing with all the airs of accomplished dilettanti
the appearance of the 'prima donna in the opera of
the previous evening. These are the jeunes gens —
the rising generation of Mauritius.

A few yards beyond the theatre, on the right-hand
side, is the Hotel de FEurope ; but let the traveller weigh
well the contents of his purse before he enters its
inviting gate. If his appetite be craving and his purse
slender, let him betake himself to some more humble
hostelry, where he may eat and be satisfied, without
ruining himself in the process. If he fail to adopt our
advice, he will have reason to repent his audacity when
the landlord refreshes his memory with his little
mennoire. Occasionally a reckless subaltern on his
way to India has been reminded of the aj^positeness of
the inscription which Dante saw over the entrance of
a certain place, and tempted to apply it to the place of
his temporary incarceration —

" Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate,"

as he waits for remittances that do not come, and eat<s

MAUEITItrS HOTELS. 33

dinners which, to borrow a French idiom, he must some
day pay through the nose, or break the parole on which
his landlord has placed him. A private dinner at the
Hotel de TEurope costs more than the same meal at the
Clarendon ; and if the traveller is accompanied by his
wife we should scarcely advise him to dine at the table
d'hote. There is a freedom in the conversation such as
would never be sanctioned in any similar establishment
on the Continent, and an occasional mixture of gros set,
tickling enough to the palates of its Creole frequenters,
but scarcely adapted to the tastes of our British wives
and sisters. If the traveller meditates a brief sojourn,
and finds his purse in a satisfactory condition, he may
enter. On crossing the threshold, he finds himself in a
large hall, floored with marble, and filled with half-
naked servants disputing among themselves in Creole,
and shewing little alacrity in attending to his wants.
The walls are covered with paper, on which are repre-
sented landscapes, in that style of art which was so
much in vogue in the reign of Louis XV. The stairs
and floors of the upper rooms are composed of wood,
and rubbed with wax till they are dazzlingly bright and
dangerously slippery. The bed-rooms are small, and so
ill ventilated that in the hot season sleeping with the
windows shut is impossible. The beds are composed
of iron bars that have been once gilt, and covered with
muslin curtains to admit the air and keep out the mos-
quitoes. The furniture is of the simplest description.
It consists of a cane-bottomed chair and a small wooden
table, both of which have seen service. If he finds a
c

34 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

mirror, the traveller may esteem himself fortunate.
Fire-place there is none, nor is it required. A thin
pannel partition separates him from his next neighbour.
If the latter has eaten a heavy dinner, or is at all of an
apoplectic tendency, he will be fully apprised of that
fact.

For the use of this bed-room, with breakfast at nine
o'clock, and dinner at the table d'hote at six, the tra-
veller pays six dollars (twenty-four shillings). The
principal dish at breakfast is curry, and the favourite
beverage claret and water. The dinner consists of
several entrees, and the different dishes are cooked in
the French style. The soup and the salad are good, the
other dishes too highly seasoned, or too greasy, to please
the palate before it is accustomed to Creole cookery.
Immediately after dinner, cofi'ee is served in small cups,
with the usual accompaniment of d^ petit verre of brandy.
The guests then disperse, and the regular frequenters
of the house seat themselves in the verandah to enjoy
the coolness of the evening air and the soothing influ-
ences of the cigar. The smallness of the space, within
which their lives are circumscribed, does not leave room
for much variety in the conversation of the Creoles.
The ship captains discuss the merits of their vessels,
the character of their agents, and the freights at the
different places they have visited. The Frenchmen,
whom the hope of fortune has enticed to this little spot
in the Indian Ocean, declare life to be very triste, and
long for the cafes, the theatres, and the gaieties of Paris.
While six dollars is the nominal sum which the travel-

MAUEITIUS LANDLORDS. 35

kr pays for the conveniences we have enumerated, if
he thinks that that amount will cover all his ex-
penses he will soon find that he has reckoned without
his host. The latter personage has a most retentive
memory for the smallest offices that have been rendered
beneath his roof, and an extravagant idea of their value.
To escape this unexpected drain upon his purse, the
traveller should in every case make a bargain with the
landlord for a fixed sum. This is the usual practice,
'and ought never to be neglected.

There are two other hotels in Port Louis, occasionally
frequented by travellers — Masse's Hotel, near the Chaus-
see, and George's Hotel, behind the theatre. The former
is an old establishment, and while it is less central and
attractive than the Hotel de I'Europe, the landlord has
the reputation of being the best cook in the colony. His
charge for the same accommodation as at the Europe
Hotel is four dollars, instead of six. George's Hotel
partakes more of the character of a private boarding-
house than of a regular hotel. Its rooms are generally
occupied by permanent residenters in the colony, and a
friend of mine who lived there six months, speaks in fa-
vourable terms of the landlord, who is a coloured man.

Before dismissing the Mauritius landlords, a word
must be said in their favour. The traveller, before con-
demning in too strong terms their apparently extravagant
charges, must take into account their peculiar position,
which resembles that of the hotel-keepers on any of the
great routes in Europe, whose houses are frequented by
travellers only during a few months of the year, and re-

36 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

main almOvSt without a guest till the next season brings
its tide of visitors. The establishment must be kept up
throughout the year, and the travellers, though not
using it, must pay for its support. The Mauritius land-
lords, also, pay an exorbitant sum as house-rent, and
their expenditure, in a colony where all the necessaries
of life are imported at a high rate, must be very great.
There is this difference, also, between their position and
that of their brother Bonifaces in Europe, that while
travellers must patronise the latter, the former are
cheated of their lawful prey by the hospitable English
residents who are ever ready to open their kind homes
for the reception of all who have any claims upon their
attention. No wonder, then, that the landlords of
Mauritius, when they catch any unfortunate traveller,
do their utmost pour fair e valoir le bouchon.

It happened to be a Sunday morning when I landed
in Mauritius. Every traveller fresh from England, who
lands on the same day, will speedily be reminded that
this colony, though nominally English, is essentially
French in all its habits and customs. He will find open
canteens and arrack-shops, less gorgeous than the gin-
palaces of London, but doing their work with the same
deadly effect. He will be jostled by gangs of drunken
sailors spending their Sunday ashore, and imparting to
the heathen Coolie from Hindostan his first ideas of the
Christian character. If he pass near the bazaar, he
will have to thread his way among groups of Indians
that have been long enough in the colony to profit by
their Christian brother's example, and to imbibe a taste

NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 37

for the poison sold in the canteens. He will meet
vehicles of all kinds, from the luxurious carriage to
the rattling carriole, filled with the citizens of the better
class, hurrying to the country to spend the Sabbath at
Pamplemousses. He will find the shops open, and
their goods exposed for sale ; the bazaar thronged by
busy purchasers ; and every place of public resort
attracting its share of attention, save the house of God,
the visitors to which seem to be few and far between.
He will hear the clang of the blacksmith's hammer, and
all the other sounds of labour that are hushed and
silent on an English Sabbath; and if it be the sugar
season, and prices are rising, he will see the smoke as-
cending from the mills, and the bands of Coolies cutting
down the canes in the fields. At first, he may flatter
himself that Sabbath labour is confined to the French
Creoles. This delusion will speedily vanish. He will soon
find that the English engineer and the English planter,
who, when they return home, will perhaps join societies
for enforcing the better observance of the Sabbath, are
as ready to labour on the Sabbath as their Creole neigh-
bours. One or two fearful accidents — or, shall we say
judgments? — that have overtaken Englishmen labouring
on the Sabbath, may deter their fellow-planters for a
time from working their machinery on that sacred day,
but a sudden rise^ in the sugar market, or the dread of
an unfavourable season, is sufficient to make them re-
turn to their former course. What will not the lust of
gold eff'ect? We speak of these men as a class. Among
the English residents in Mauritius there are as good

88 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

and consistent Christians as are to be found at home,
but their name is not legion. They are not many.

After you have been " cribb'd, cabin'd, and confined "
in a merchant ship for nearly four months, and fed
upon salt provisions, the first breakfast on shore is a
luxury to be remembered in after years with a feeling
of lively satisfaction. The hard musty biscuit — in its
best estate a miserable substitute for bread — is ex-
changed for the delicate French roll, fresh butter, tea
and coffee with cream; and the pleasant variety of
tropical fruits, though enjoyable at all seasons, have a
delightful zest when partaken of for the first time after
a long voyage. You feel that the pleasures of the first
meal ashore alniost compensate for the privations of
the past voyage, and astonish the Creole waiter by the
rapidity with which you despatch the good things spread
out for your refreshment.

An officer on the staflf opened his hospitable home
for my reception till I had made arrangements about
my future movements. I accompanied him in the fore-
noon to the English church, situated in La-Bourdonnais
Street, in the neighbourhood of the Champ de Mars.
The building now used as a church was originally a
powder magazine. To judge from the frigid manner
in which the whole service was conducted, one might
have been tempted to believe that the building was still
filled with some combustible material, which it required
the strictest caution to prevent from exploding. Owing
to some defect in his organs of speech, the officiating
minister's voice was inaudible even to those seated

PLACES OF WOESHIP. 39

nearest to the pulpit, and the empty pews shewed that •

the English Protestants in Mauritius were indeed to be
pitied as hahitantes in sicco. All this has now been
changed. The present English bishop is an eloquent
preacher, a laborious and devoted pastor, full of a mis-
sionary spirit, and ready to assist in every good work.
Although his unceasing labours cannot raise Protestant-
ism to the position which, if fairly represented at first,
it ought to have occupied in this colony, they have
already effected a great change in the attendance at
church. Every pew is now occupied, and it is pleasing
to observe that the poor as well as the rich meet at the
house of God to hear the glad tidings of salvation
through Him, who, while He was rich, yet for our sakes
became poor, that we, through His poverty, might
be made rich.

I accompanied my friend in the afternoon to an
Independent chapel, where the congregation is com-
posed of Creoles, and the service conducted in French.
It is a low-roofed building, situated behind the civil
prison, and capable of containing about four hundred
worshippers. On approaching it, I was rather asto-
nished at seeing a number of coloured lads lounging
about the door and smoking cigars, as if it had been
the entrance to a theatre. The congregation amounted
to about a hundred persons, principally young negresses
and women of colour. Their dress was generally com-
posed of white muslin. Few of them wore shoes or
stockings. The younger females had their heads un-
covered, while the more elderly wore Madras handker-

40 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

chiefs of rather a gay pattern, rolled turban-fashion
round the head. The singing seemed to be the part of
the service in which tHey felt most interested. The
prayers and sermon were listened to with respectful
but half-drowsy attention. When the singing came,
the rich dark African eye was lighted up with enthu-
siastic feeling, and the different hymns were sung with
great power and considerable skill, which shewed that
the performers had been carefully trained. The mis-
sionary who officiated was a young man, a son of the
Eev. J. Lebrun, who has devoted nearly forty years to
the work of evangelising the African race in the Mauri-
tius, and who, after surmounting many difficulties, can
point to four Protestant congregations in different parts
of the island as the fruit of his labours.

We attended the evening service at the English
church. There were not twenty persons in the whole
church. The service was conducted by the Eev. L.
Banks, a kind, warm-hearted Irishman, who, if pro-
perly supported, might have effected much good in the
colony, but whose usefulness was marred by causes on
which it is not necessary to enter. He imbibed the
seeds of disease, during his unremitting attention to
the sick, in the fearful outbreak of cholera with which
this island was visited in 1854, and died — where the
soldier of the Cross should die — in the field of duty.
A handsome marble tablet, with an appropriate inscrip-
tion, has been erected to his memory in the interior of
the church. Peace to his ashes ! He was a good man,
full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.

SCAECITY OF HOUSES IN POET LOUIS. 41

CHAPTER II.

Scarcity of Houses in Port Louis — Hospitality — Pamplemousses Gardens
— Paul and Virginia — Their Monuments — Dearness of Living —
Traditional Furniture— Chinamen — Origin of Slavery — Execution of
a Dutch Slave — Ruling Passion Strong at Death — First French
Colonists — La Bourdonnais — The Slave Trade — Romantic Incident
— Abolition of Slavery by the French Republicans — Re-established by
Napoleon— Slavery under the British Government— Treatment of
Slaves by the French — St Pierre — Sonnerat — Baron Grant — Harrow-
ing Sufferings of the Slaves — The Code Noir — Cruelty of Female
Slaveholders — State of Crime among the Slaves — Marriage and its
Punishment — Superstition — Language, Specimen of— Emancipation
of the Slaves — Its Consequences — Present Condition of the Ex-slave
Population and their Descendants.

A STRANGER, about to take up his residence permanently
in Mauritius, usually finds some difficulty in obtaining
a suitable house. The population of Port Louis has
increased very much of late years, but few new houses
have been built, as the inhabitants have found better
investments for their money. In consequence of this,
a stranger is often obliged to wait till the departure of
some English or French resident for Europe enables
him to obtain a lease of his house. A highly respected
merchant, himself " a kindly Scot,'' received me into
his hospitable house, and entertained me for two
months, till I was able to secure a house in town. It
was amusing to observe the hold which old Scottish
associations had over his mind, after many years of

42 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

absence, and the outward expression which they assumed.
His comfortable bungalow was known as Burnside
House, and his butler rejoiced in the name of Dugald.
Many a poor missionary, on his way home from India,
retains a grateful remembrance of his generous kind-
ness and warm-hearted hospitality. A short time before
my arrival, a vessel from Ceylon put in at Port Louis
for repairs, which detained her three months. During
that time a missionary, his wife, and three children,
who were obliged to leave the ship, were kindly enter-
tained by the owner of Burnside House, to whom they
were perfect strangers.

Accompanied by my kind host's obliging nephew, I
visited the Botanical Gardens at Pamplemousses, the
great place of resort for passing visitors. While the
term botanical is rather misapplied to these gardens, they
are interesting from the collection of trees, shrubs, and
herbaceous plants, peculiar to the tropics, which they
contain. Among the plants are some magnificent sago
palms, and an interesting collection of spice-growing
trees and shrubs. The nutmeg tree is generally an object
of great interest to travellers. Its fruit resembles a
Green Chissel pear, and when it is ripe, it bursts open
and exposes to view the nutmeg, covered with its coating
of bright red mace. Mr Dancan, the kind and obliging
gardener, is ever ready to supply travellers with spe-
cimens of the nutmeg, which, when preserved in brine,
form an interesting souvenir of Mauritius. A specimen
of the mangoustan tree, the fruit of which is regarded
as superior to every other, may also be seen ; but owing

PAUL AND VIRGINIA. 43

to the difference of soil and climate between Mauritius
and Malacca, from which it was brought, the fruit never
reaches maturity. Mr Duncan has made an extensive
collection of the ferns indigenous to the island, and
the traveller will never regret a day spent amid the
fine shady alleys and tropical exuberance of Pample-
mousses Gardens.

To the sentimentalist the loveliest productions of na-
ture are less attractive than the most common objects
that are in any way associated with the productions
of genius. The pen of Bernardin St Pierre has done
more to attract the traveller to Pamplemousses, than
the rarest productions of the tropics, and the monu-
ments of Paul and Virginia, simple pedestals of clay,
surmounted with urns, have excited more admiration
than the far-famed traveller's tree. Whoever wishes to
have before his mind's eye a faithful and comprehen-
sive picture of the natural scenery of the island, should
read St Pierre's charming work, which could only
have been written by one who had a thorough sympathy
with nature, and a keen appreciation of her beauties.
It is a painful task at all times to unwind the web of
fair romance which the hand of genius has spun, and
to analyse the material of which each thread is com-
posed. If St Pierre's tale were subjected to this test,
it would stand the ordeal better than most other works
of the same character. There is an air of reality
throughout the whole work, which owes but little to the
author's imagination. His fancy may have filled up
the minor details, but the outline of the work is founded

44 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

on reality. I have read over the deposition of the five
sailors who survived the wreck of the St Ghran. The
vessel seems to have been lost through the ignorance
and obstinacy of the officer in command. A common
sailor, who knew the coast, ventured to remonstrate
with this officer, and was answered with a blow. Soon
after the vessel struck. There was a young lady on
board, the daughter of a planter, who was returning
from France, where she had been sent for her educa-
tion. A young officer had become enamoured of her
during the voyage, and was anxious to save her life.
The scene described by St Pierre was actually witnessed
by the spectators on shore, and among others by the
young lady's father, who could render no assistance : —

" The waters wild went o'er his child.
And he was left lamenting."

From the sublime to the ridiculous, from Paul and
Virginia, painted by St Pierre, to their monuments at
Pamplemousses, there is only a step. These monu-
ments have been erected from a wish to gratify the
desire which the mind has to give a visible and
tangible reality to the pictures of the imagination. A
distinguished nobleman, Governor-General of India, on
his way to Europe, touched at Mauritius, and dined at
Government House. The conversation chanced upon
Paul and Virginia, when the Indian guest asked if
there was no tomb to mark the grave of the heroine.
The Mauritius Governor was about to answer in the
negative, when his aide-de-camp anticipated him with
the reply that there was a monument over the remains

THE MONUMENTS AT PAMPLEMOUSSES. 45

of Virginia, and that lie could drive to Pamplemousses
and examine it the next day before dinner. The guests
belonging to the colony, who knew that the spot where
Virginia was interred, far from being marked by any
monument, was even unknown, looked rather aghast at
this statement, but left the aide-de-camp to justify it as
best he might. Next day the Governor-General was grati-
fied with the sight of a monument at Pamplemousses,
said to have been erected on the very spot where Vir-
ginia was buried after the shipwreck. The apparent
recency of its erection was explained by the aide-de-
camp remarking that it had been repaired immedi-
ately before his Excellency's visit. The work of a day
was examined with such feelings of veneration as to
shew that even a Governor-General may be mystified.
The monument took, and the proprietor netted a hand-
some sum by exhibiting it to travellers. To render
the delusion complete, and to gratify the admirers of
Paul, his tomb was placed by the side of Virginia's
where it has ever since remained. Both these monu-
ments have frequently been destroyed through that
iconoclastic tendency peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon race,
which would lead some of them to chip off the nose
of the Apollo Belvidere, if they could, in order to prove
to their friends at home that they have seen that master-
piece of art. The monuments thus destroyed have been
replaced by others, which are as much the monuments
of Paul and Virginia as those which preceded them.

At the end of two months, I established myself
in a small house in Port Louis. No one can know

46 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

how dear living is in this colony till he has tried
the experiment. Visitors from India, with large in-
comes, often hasten their departure for this reason. A
small cottage, with four or five rooms, situated on the
Champ de Mars, or the Champ Delort, fetches a rent
of from <£*80 to .^1 00 per annum. A colonial chap-
lain, with £4iOO a-year, finds it difficult to live on his
salary. A correspondent of the Times has been trying
to prove of late that a man may marry and be happy
on <i£*300 a-year. I would not advise any one to make
the experiment in Mauritius. Allow the happy Bene-
dict an additional hundred, and he will not be without
his difficulties. One-fourth of his income is absorbed
by the single item of house rent. He will require a
cook, a coachman, a washerman, a female servant, and
a butler ; their united wages will be more than ^dOO.
About £50 per annum must be set aside for keeping
a horse and carriage — a luxury in England, but a ne-
cessity in Mauritius. His daily household expenses
will be at least 6s., or <£^100 per annum, leaving only
c£*50 to pay for clothes, medical attendance, charities,
and all possible contingencies. These contingencies in
the course of a year are rather numerous. Does he
break the glass of his watch? A new one costs a dollar.
Does his watch require to be cleaned? The usual charge
is five dollars. Does his servant break the glass globe
which holds his lamp (mine broke two in one year) ? He
must pay ten dollars to replace it. Does a Malabar
coachman, stupified with gandia, drive against his car-
riage (nothing is more common) ? He will have to pay

TEADITIONAL FUEJflTURE. 47

from twenty to forty dollars for repairs. But why
enlarge upon these contingencies? They are the dark
spectres of every poor man's existence in Mauritius.
They come often in very questionable shapes, but no
one is proof against them.

When a man takes possession of a house in Mauritius,
it is not necessary that he should furnish it in the same
style as at home. He furnishes gradually, and as oppor-
tunity offers. The furniture is at first often of the sim-
plest description. A table, a few chairs, a bed, and a
hatterie de cuisine, are the first requisites. He can add
gradually to his stock at the different sales, which occur
when his countrymen leave. There are several of these
sales every year. An Englishman's furniture is generally
bought by Englishmen. It becomes thus, in a mea-
sure, national and traditional; and an old residenter,
on returning to the colony, often buys the same article
which belonged to him years before. These are gene-
rally of Indian or Cingalese manufacture, and ebony,
of which most of them are made, is so durable, that
many of them become almost hereditary. A few of
the merchants have their houses furnished with elegant
furniture from London ; but these are exceptional cases.
Most of them, meditating a removal, are content with
the articles which their predecessors used. There are
certain articles which families, intending to reside in
Mauritius, would do well to bring out with them from
England. Among these may be mentioned glass,
breakfast and dinner services, and plate. Plated ware
is usually preferred to pure silver; the latter is apt to

48 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

find its way to the Malabar jewellers, who soon trans-
mute it into some other shape. Though clothing is
rather expensive, it is not advisable to bring an exten-
sive wardrobe from home. There is an insect, sup-
posed to be the same as the one alluded to in Matt. vi.
20, which finds its way into the best secnred armoire,
and feeds upon its contents. Often on bringing out for
some special occasion an English-made coat, the owner
is astounded at finding it riddled by this mischievous
moth, which thus reads him a practical homily on the
vanity of earthly things. A tin box is the best pre-
ventive against its inroads. A large stock of shirts is
indispensable, for two reasons — those sold in the co-
lony are very bad and very dear; those brought from
home are subjected to a treatment which would excite
the indignation of any decent English washerwoman.
The traveller, when approaching Mauritius by sea,
on passing near the mouth of Grand River, is sur-
jDrised by seeing what appears to be a flock of sheep
leaping with short bounds into the air in rapid succes-
sion, without changing their position. The truth is,
that the mouth of the river is the wash-tub of Mauri-
tius. There the clothes of the people of Port Louis,
and of the surrounding country districts, are washed
in a truly original and primitive fashion. The washer-
men, who are usually Indians, known in their own
language as dhohies, first carry the clothes into the
stream, where they rub them over with soap, and
soak them in the water. They then carry them to the
land, wring them into a knot, and beat them with all

DINING IN STATE. 49

their might against a stone. The soaking, nibbing,
wringing, and beating are repeated several times.
They are then spread out in the sun, and' sprinkled
with water. By means of this process linen attains a
whiteness such as is never witnessed in Europe, but it is
at the expense of the material, which is soon worn out.

The small house which I occupied was on a level
with the street, and I was obliged to leave the windows
open to admit the cool air in the evening. A small
crowd of black gamins used to watch me at dinner
with much interest, to judge from their looks and
remarks. I had occasional visits at the same hour
from a Chinese shopkeeper from the opposite side of
the street. He entered my dining-room with the free-
dom and ease of one who had the entree of the house,
examined the food of the barbarian with the air of a
connaisseur, opened my cupboard, and inspected my
tea-caddy. He generally concluded by inviting me, in
broken English and Creole, to visit his store, which,
knowing th'e roguish character of his countrymen, I
respectfully declined.

There are about two thousand Chinamen in Port
Louis. They are principally small traders from Singa-
pore, and are a frugal, industrious, thrifty race. The
pork trade of the colony is in their hands. When
they purchase a pig, they conduct it to the slaughter-
house in a more expeditious way than by driving.
They first bind the four legs together with a cord, and
then insert a pole between them, which rests upon the
shoulders of two sturdy bearers. To prevent the pig

50 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

from expressing his disapproval of this treatment, he
is thoroughly gagged, and becomes one of the quietest
and most tractable animals in existence.

Some of them are market gardeners, and the loads
they bear balanced on their shoulders give one a high
idea of their physical strength. They are the most skil-
ful thieves in the colony. Some of them effected an
entrance into the Commercial Bank, a few years ago, by
undermining the building, and succeeded in carrying
off a large sum of money without being detected.
They are also much addicted to opium and gambling.
They have a joss-house situated on the road that leads
to the Cemetery. It is not much frequented, and the few
idols it contains are treated with little respect. Offer-
ings of rice are presented to them on the great festival
days, but the Chinaman shews his tendency to roguery
even in the treatment of his gods. If you examine
that offering of rice, in the shape of a small mound
on the floor of the joss-house, it will be found that
there is only an outward coating of rice, while the
rest is made up of stones and earth — a proof either that
the Chinaman's tendency to roguery is irresistible, or
that his ideas of the intelligence of his gods are not
very exalted. Their religious worship partakes of that
practical character which marks theix whole conduct.
It seems to consist mainly in eating pork, and drinking
innumerable small cups of tea. They are the only
race in the colony that seem utterly destitute of all
religious susceptibility, and satisfied with a hard, bare
materialism. I obtained a hundred copies of the

chinamen's faith in waeren. 51

Chinese Testament from Hong Kong, and endeavoured
to dispose of them among the Chinamen. I did not
find one who could not read, but the few who desired
to have copies seemed to value them merely as articles
of merchandise. They have a burial-ground at the
Cemetery, separated by a wall from the other depart-
ments of the dead. Their graves, which are built of
stone, have inscriptions, in perpendicular rows of
Chinese characters, setting forth, no doubt, the lineage
and virtues of the deceased. The stones, on which
these inscriptions are cut out, are inserted into the
north end of the graves, and are about two feet high.
They are generally of basalt, but sometimes of marble.
There is a sort of altar, with a marble tablet let into it,
projecting from the neighbouring wall, where candles
are burned, and some ceremonies performed by the
officiating priest at their funerals. They are not in
any sense a demonstrative race. They all dress in the
same manner, the ordinary costume being a straw hat,
a light blouse, and wide trousers. The usual sign over
their shops is a huge red placard, intimating that
Warren's blacking is sold there. The Chinamen have
faith in Warren, and believe this intimation sufficient.
Before attempting to describe the present condition
of society in the colony, or to account for the existence
of its mixed and motley population, it is necessary to
cast a retrospective glance upon the origin, progress,
and final abolition of slavery — an institution which
leaves its impress upon the character of the inhabitants
of every country where it has existed. The origin of

52 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

slavery in tliis and other French colonies situated
within the tropics, is candidly stated in the preface to
the Code Noir : — " As the heat of these climates, and
the temperature of ours, prevent Frenchmen from
undertaking so painful a labour as the clearing of the
uncultivated lands in these burning countries, it was
necessary to supply this want by means of men accus-
tomed to the heat of the sun and the greatest degree
of fatigue. Hence the importation of negroes from
Africa into our colonies. Hence the necessity of
slavery, in order to subject a multitude of powerful
men to a small number of Frenchmen transplanted
into these islands. It cannot be denied that slavery
in this case was dictated by prudence and by the
wisest policy. Intended only for the cultivation of
our colonies, the same necessity which caused the in-
troduction of slaves continues their existence there,
and it was never intended that they should bear their
chains into the midst of the mother-country.'' This
statement was drawn up at a period when slavery was
universal, and when no man had yet raised his voice
to protect the miserable African from a system which
" was dictated by prudence and the wisest policy."

Slavery was first introduced into Mauritius by the
Dutch, who possessed the island from about the middle
of the seventeenth century to the year 1712, and
bestowed upon it its present name. Two reasons are
assigned for their having abandoned the island — the
ravages of rats, which almost literally ate them out of
house and home, and the necessity of concentrating all

SLAVERY UNDER THE DtTCH. 53

their forces at the Cape of Good Hope; so as to place
that colony in a state of defence. Nothing is known
of the working of slavery under the Dutch, except
from a casual allusion of the Abbe Rochon, and the
narrative of Le Guat, a Huguenot refugee, who was
imprisoned for some time by the Dutch Governor
Diodati. The Abb^, in his "Voyage to Madagascar,"
thus alludes to slavery in Mauritius : — " Pronis, who had
been commissioned to take possession of Madagascar
in the name of the King of Prance, was a man of in-
ferior talents. He added to his other malversations
that of selling to Vander-Mester, then Governor of
Mauritius, the unfortunate Malagashes who were
in the service of the settlement ; but it excited the
islanders to the highest pitch of indignation, when they
found that among these slaves, there were sixteen women
of the race of Lohariths." Prom Le Guat's narrative,
it would appear that the Dutch were not more humane
in the treatment of their slaves than their successors in
the island : — " The commandant having been informed
that a negro had committed some thefts in his kitchen,
condemned him to receive the chastisement connected
with that offence, which was very severe. The miserable
culprit, alarmed at the sufferings with which he was
threatened, took to flight, after having plotted a design
with one of his comrades and two negro women to set
fire to the fort. They accordingly executed their fatal
scheme, but were not so fortunate as to escape ; they
were shortly taken, when the two men suffered the rack,
and the women were hanged. One of these wretched

54 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

criminals, it seems, had possessed a most inordinate
passion for play, which predominated on the scaffold
where he was about to suffer a most painful death. He
there entreated with the most earnest solicitation, that
some one of the assistants on this awful occasion might,
as an act of charity, be permitted to throw dice with
him for a few minutes, and that he should then suffer
the sentence of the law without regret. If he had any
secret motive for his conduct, it was known only to
himself ; but, be that as it may, no one was disposed to
be of his party, and he appeared to lament the refusal
more than his fate." This reckless conduct may
appear to have resulted from some peculiar idiosyncrasy
in the negro character, and many may be disposed to
regard it as a proof of his inferior nature. To prevent
such a conclusion, and to prove that it is the same
human heart which beats beneath the pallium of a car-
dinal and the rags of a negro, we quote the following
anecdote from "Louis XIV. and his Age." The author
is describing the death-bed of Cardinal Mazarin: —
" Gambling, which had been his ruling passion, survived
all others. Being no longer able to play himself, he
caused others to play around his bed; being no longer
able to hold the cards, he caused another to hold them
for him. Play was thus carried on, till the moment
when the Pope's nuncio, informed that the cardinal had
received the viaticum, came to bestow the indulgence "
(p. 264, Paris edition). This anecdote proves that
gambling, like every other vice, degrades all men to the
same level, and that a negro and a cardinal will both

LA BOUEDONNAIS APPOINTED GOVERNOE. 55

manifest at death what has been the ruling passion in
life. Macpherson, a noted freebooter, who lived during
the last century, and was executed at Banff, requested
as a last favour to be allowed to play a favourite air, on
the scaffold.

When the Dutch abandoned the island in 1712, they
left behind them some fugitive slaves, who had escaped
to the mountains. These were not left in solitary
possession of the island. As soon as it was known
that the Dutch had abandoned it, a few husband-
men from Bourbon, where a French settlement had
been formed in 1657 by M. de Flacourt, after he and
his countrymen had been expelled from Madagascar,
took possession of it. These, however, were not the
sole settlers in Mauritius. Adventurers of all nations,
who had been engaged in piracy in the Indian Ocean,
and who had formed settlements on the coast of Mada-
gascar, flocked to Mauritius, accompanied by their
negro wives and slaves. For a period of more than
twenty-one years, there was no fixed government. In
1734, the East India Company of France appointed M.
de La Bourdonnais, Governor-General, and this truly
great man may be regarded as the founder of the colony.
It owed its material prosperity and the rapid develop-
ment of its resources to his enterprising spirit, his
undaunted energy, and his wonderful power of produc-
ing the greatest results with the smallest means. He
drew up the plan of the present town of Port Louis —
he traced roads around the coast and through the in-
terior of the island — he organised an army — he in-

56 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

structed the negroes in the art of shipbuilding — and in-
troduced the sugar-cane, the source of the island's future
prosperity. He was one of those men, who, if he had
lived at an earlier age, and on a more extensive scene,
might have been the founder of a dynasty, and had his
name handed down to posterity with those of the great
heroes of antiquity. Unfortunately for his fame, he
lived at a later period, and among Frenchmen. He was
recalled, and after being treated with the grossest in-
gratitude, died of a broken heart. Those who have
profited most by his services, have done nothing to
express in any permanent form their sense of their
value ; but si 7nonumentum quceris, circumspice.
Mauritius itself is a monument of what may be effected
through the talent and energy of one man.

"We can only glance at his government in its bearing
upon slavery. The East India Company of France, in
order to promote agriculture in the colony, had sanc-
tioned the introduction of slaves, whom they sold to
the inhabitants at a certain fixed price. This price
was seldom paid at the moment of purchase, and, as
many evaded payment altogether, La Bourdonnais re-
ceived instructions on this point, the execution of which
made him unpopular among the inhabitants. The
slave trade, at this period, was principally in the hands
of those pirates who had formed a settlement at Noss^
Ibrahim, on the north-east coast of Madagascar, where
they had been received with kindness and hospitality
by the natives. In return they excited a war between
the tribes in the interior and those inhabiting the sea-

THE SLAVE TRADE FROM MADAGASCAR. 57

coast, and purchased the prisoners made by both for
the purpose of conveying them for sale to Bourbon or
Mauritius. If the prisoners thus obtained proved in-
sufficient to meet the demands of the slave market, a
descent was made on some part of the island, a village
surrounded, and its younger and more vigorous inhabi-
tants borne off to a state of perpetual slavery. Harrow-
ing as the scenes witnessed in such forays must have
been, the slave trade from Madagascar to Mauritius
was not accompanied with the same horrors as from
the neighbouring continent to America. Its victims
were spared the long and harassing march from the
interior, and the horrors of being cooped up for suc-
cessive weeks beneath the hatches till they reached
their final destination ; and yet, of every five negroes
embarked at Madagascar, not more than two were found
fit for service in Mauritius. The rest were either stifled
beneath the hatches, or starved themselves to death, or
died of putrid fever, or became the food of sharks, or
fled to the mountains, or fell beneath the driver's lash.
La Bourdonnais was not the founder of slavery.
The institution preceded his arrival. We have shewn
that the Maroon slaves of the Dutch remained among
the mountains after their masters had left. These
afforded shelter and protection to their countrymen
who escaped from the French. The latter intro-
duced their first slaves in 1723. Slavery thus existed
in Mauritius for more than a century. Of every
eighteen slaves in the colony one died annually, so
that if the traffic had ceased for eighteen years, at

58 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

the end of that time the whole black population would
have died out. From first to last, Mauritius has been
the tomb of more than a million of Africans. Their
history is like the roll of the prophet, written within
and without, and the writing thereof is mourning, and
lamentation, and woe.

In order to check the fugitive slaves, La Bour-
donnais employed their countrymen against them, and
formed a marechaussee, or mounted police, who pro-
tected the colonists from their incursions. To pre-
serve the inhabitants from famine, and render the
colony independent of foreign supplies, he introduced
the manioc from the island of St Jago and the
Brazils, and published an ordinance by which every
planter was compelled to cultivate five hundred feet of
manioc for every slave that he possessed. The planters,
an ignorant and indolent race, used every measure to
discredit this innovation, and in some cases destroyed
the plantations of manioc by pouring hot water on the
root. The benefit conferred by this ordinance was felt
and appreciated at an after period, when their crops
were destroyed by hurricanes or devoured by locusts.
The manioc was safe from either of these casualties, and
was the usual article of food for the negroes. La Bour-
donnais instructed the slaves in the art of shipbuilding,
made them sailors and soldiers, and found them highly
useful in the expedition which he undertook against
the English in India. He endeavoured, also, to alleviate
their sufierings, by the enforcement of the regulations
of the Code Noir. After the dispersion of the pirates,

EOMANTIC INCIDENT. 59

the slave trade fell into the hands of European mer-
chants or Creole colonists, who extended it to the
adjoining coasts of Africa. The Mozambique negroes
were found more tractable than those of Madagascar.
The price paid by the French at Madagascar for a man
or woman from the age of thirteen to forty, was two
muskets, two cartridge-boxes, ten flints, and ten balls,
or fifteen hundred balls, or seventeen hundred flints.
When the natives became acquainted with the use of
money, the usual price was fifty dollars. In 1766, there
were about 25,000 slaves and 1200 free coloured per-
sons in the colony. In 1799, there were 55,000 of the
former class and 35,000 of the latter. In 1832, they
were estimated at 16,000 free coloured persons and
63,536 slaves. It seems difficult to account for the
diminution among the free coloured population. Baron
Grant states, that to prevent the increase of this class,
it was enacted that no slaves should be liberated save
those who had saved the lives of their masters. A
kind-hearted master could always give his slave an
opportunity of saving his life.

The slave trade, barbarous as it was, was not without
its incidents of romance. One of these may be briefly
related. A young Frenchman, of the name of Grenville
had embarked on board a slaver bound for Madagascar,
in command of a small detachment of troops. At first
they encamped on the small island of Nosse Ibrahim, or
St Marie, but were induced by the protestations of a
native prince to remove to the mainland. At night
Grenville received a visit from the daughter of the prince,

60 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

who, on the assurance that he would save her life and
spare her relations, disclosed to him a plot which her
father had formed for the massacre of the whole party.
It was to be executed the next day ; the breaking of a
stick, which the prince held in his hand, was to be the
signal of attack. If he should wish his followers to
defer the attack, he would throw; his liat towards them.
The princess was conducted to a place of safety, and
Grenville calmly awaited the result. Everything hap-
pened as was foretold. The king made an early visit,
carrying in his hand a stick, which after some conver-
sation he broke. To seize him and press a pistol to his
head was the work of a moment. His hat was thrown
to his attendants, who immediately retired, and he him-
self was detained in custody till the departure of the
vessel. On reaching Mauritius, Grenville, in opposi-
tion to his family, publicly married the woman who
had saved his life. After some years, intelligence of
her father's death reached Mauritius, and she requested
permission to visit her native land, which was granted.
Her husband, who loved her sincerely, regretted her
absence, but refrained from inquiring into the cause.
Soon after, the princess returned in the same vessel
which had conveyed her to Madagascar, with one hun-
dred and fifty slaves, whom she presented to her hus-
band, with a speech such as might have been expected
from one of Corneille's heroines rather than from an
uneducated savage. In transferring her subjects to her
husband as slaves, she acted the part of a good wife,
but of a bad queen.

AMERICAN SLAVERY, 61

The first attempt to emancipate the slaves was made
by the leaders of the Erench Eevolution, who, while
they professed to discard Christianity as a revelation
from God, deduced the equality of all men before God
from the principles of natural reason. The greatest
republic of modern times, which, in its constitution,
admits theoretically the equality of all men, and pro-
fesses to be guided by Christian principles, retains
slavery as a domestic institution, and sets public opinion
at defiance. Such conduct is a libel on Christianity,
and slavery, when defended from revelation, would seem
to degrade revelation beneath reason. The founders of
the French republic, guided only by reason, struck a
blow at slavery as inconsistent with reason : the rulers
of the American republic, professing to be guided only
by revelation, keep nearly four millions of their fellow-
men in bondage, and scout at all interference in their be-
half. When shall this foul blot on our modern Chris-
tianity be efiaced, and Christian Americans enabled to
speak and think of their country without a blush?

The prohibition of slavery was rendered null and void
by the planters of Mauritius and the members of the
local government, all of whom were slaveholders, and
opposed to any change. The only effect of the prohi-
bition was to alienate the affection of the colonists from
the mother-country, and to lead them to rejoice when
Napoleon assumed the consular power, and annulled
the ordinance prohibiting slavery. It is a singular coin-
cidence that his nephew, the present French Emperor,
has sanctioned the introduction of African immigrants

62 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

into the French colonies — a measure which amounts
practically to the repeal of the abolition of slavery, and
will lead to the renewal of the horrors of the slave
trade. It is worthy of remark, that negroes from Madar
gascar were introduced into Bourbon even before this
traffic was publicly sanctioned by the Imperial Go-
vernment. Mauritius received one cargo of negroes
recently, when the Government interfered. The plant-
ers of both of these colonies have still a hankering after
slavery, and nothing but the keenest watchfulness on
the part of the local authorities can prevent the re-
newal of this system.

After the capture of the island by the British, the
importation of slaves was prohibited under severe
penalties. As the execution of this law was vested in
the local authorities, who had a direct personal interest
in the continuance of this traffic, slaves were still im-
ported in sufficient numbers to satisfy the wants of
the ]3lanters. It is true, that trading in slaves was
declared to be felony — that the two harbours of Port
Louis and Mahebourg were closed against their en-
trance— that a slave registry was opened in 1815 —
and that credulous Governors wrote to the home
authorities that the Mauritians, far from wishing to
renew this nefarious traffic, were filled with indignation
at the remembrance of its horrors. All this may be
true, and yet the slave trade was as brisk as ever, and
the island swarmed with negroes whose peculiar ap-
pearance and ignorance of Creole proved them to be of
recent introduction. No law can be executed unless it

ILLICIT INTRODUCTION OF SLAVES. 63

be in accordance with the feelings of the community,
and the feelings of the Mauritians were altogether in
favour of slavery. The illicit introduction of slaves
was a felony by law, and yet, notwithstanding the
notorious violations of this law, no one was ever con-
victed. The prisoner might have turned on the judge
and proved his complicity in the crime. The only
convictions that were obtained were in the case of
offenders that were sent to England for trial. This
statement will excite no astonishment on the part of
those who are acquainted with the manner in which
justice is still administered in Mauritius. The slave
registry was opened in 1815, but the entries were so
falsified, that instead of checking slavery, it threw its
mantle of protection over it. Slaves were not intro-
duced publicly at the two chief ports of the island from
Africa, but the Seychelles Islands lay at a convenient
distance, and slaves registered at the Seychelles were
admitted into Mauritius without any questions being
asked. The coral reef that surrounds the island could
easily be passed, and the slaves landed in those light
pirogues that are used by the fishermen. The Go-
vernors were surrounded by functionaries who were
slaveholders, and who were therefore interested in sup-
porting the traffic, and screening the offenders from
punishment; so that their reports, grounded on infor-
mation received from these parties, were not entitled to
much credit. As to the feelings of indignation expressed
by the colonists at the remembrance of the horrors of the
slave trade, it is sufficient to remark, that rogues are

64 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

always louder in protestation of their innocence than
honest men — that this transition of feeling was too
rapid to be sincere — and that truthfulness of character
does not stand high in the code of Mauritius morality.
This traffic, ignored or connived at by the local au-
thorities, could not altogether escape the notice of the
Home Grovernment; and when the question of com-
pensation to the slaveholders was under the considera-
tion of the House of Lords, Lord Brougham asked if
it were true, that there were 30,000 slaves in Mauritius,
the greater part of whom had been imported thither
subsequently to the enactment of a law prohibiting
the horrid traffic? He wished to know what steps had
been taken to ascertain the number of slaves thus
illegally imported ; whether any measures had been
adopted to render it impossible that any one of these
slaves should be taken into account in awarding the
share of compensation payable to the proprietors under
the late act? Lord Glenelg, in reply, admitted that
the illegal importation of slaves had been carried on
extensively, though he could not say whether the
number of slaves thus imported exceeded 30,000. He
pointed out the great difficulty which presented itself,
in trying to distinguish the slaves illegally imported
from others of the same class in the colony. Lord
Brougham must say, that if we were to pay dC'SOOjOOO
or c£'600,000 in respect of illegally imported slaves, or,
in other words, for felony and piracy, it would be one
of the most hateful operations ever perpetrated in
the financial concerns of this country. Hateful as

FELONY AND PIEACY AT A PREMIUM. 65

this operation appeared to the noble lord, it was actually
perpetrated, and nearly half-a-million of British money
was paid in compensation for slaves imported in de-
fiance of British law. A sum of <£'2,112,632, 10s. was
paid to the slaveholders of Mauritius from the British
treasury, as a compensation for the loss sustained
through the emancipation of 66,343 slaves. If the
number of slaves illegally imported be estimated at a
fourth of the whole number, more than half-a-million
of British money was paid to those who, by the law of
England, deserved a felon's doom. It was a master-
stroke of Mauritius genius, still looked back to with
unqualified admiration, first to introduce some 15,000
slaves in defiance of the laws of Great Britain, and then
to make Great Britain pay half-a-million of a compen-
sation for the slaves thus illegally introduced. But
there is a Nemesis in such cases, from whose influence
even Mauritians are not exempt. The large sum thus
dishonestly obtained was squandered in luxury and
dissipation, and laid the foundation of those extrava-
gant habits among the white Creoles, the indulgence of
which, joined with other causes, has led to the trans-
ference of a large proportion of the property in the
colony from them to their coloured relatives, and may
ultimately end in their extinction.

In judging of the treatment of the slaves in Mauri-
tius, recourse must be had to those writers who visited
or lived in the colony during the prevalence of slavery,
and have given the world the benefit of their expe-
rience. These are St Pierre, Sonnerat, and Baron

E

66 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

Grant. The first of these, the well-known author of
" Paul and Virginia," whose works contributed largely
to the abolition of slavery by the founders of the first
republic, spent several years in the island, and mingled
freely with the inhabitants of all classes. The last was
bom in the colony, where his father had sought to re-
trieve his fortune after the failure of Law's Mississippi
scheme. As the son of a slaveholder, who had been
accustomed from infancy to witness the cruelties to
which the negroes were exposed, Grant endeavours in
every way to soften the picture, or to justify the darker
shades which cannot be concealed, on the ground of
necessity. St Pierre, on the other hand, was an en-
thusiastic young man, with a heart overflowing with
those sentiments of humanity which, in theory at
least, pervaded all classes of society in France towards
the commencement of the eighteenth century. An en-
thusiastic admirer of Nature, which nowhere presents
herself to the eye of the traveller under more fascinat-
ing forms than in Mauritius, he could not help con-
trasting her peaceful aspect with the fearful cruelties
which he daily witnessed, and feeling that while all
God's other works were perfect in their beauty, man
alone was vile. While slavery sheds its baleful influ-
ences over all countries where it has ever existed, and
leaves unmistakeable traces of its presence and cha-
racter, it is a strange fact, which we leave to others to
explain, that the French, who are, in theory, the most
humane of all nations, have, in practice, been the most
cruel in the treatment of their slaves, with the exception

ST pieere's picture of slavery. 67

perhaps of the Spaniards, who seem to vie with them
for this evil notoriety. The pictures presented in the
writings of St Pierre might appear exaggerated, or
prejudiced, if drawn by a foreigner ; but it must be
borne in mind, that he describes only what he witnessed,
and that his good faith has never been questioned. He
thus speaks of their landing and treatment: — "They
are landed with just a rag round their loins. The
men are ranged on one side and the women on the
other, with their infants, who cling from fear to their
mothers. The planter, having examined them as he
would a horse, buys what may then attract him.
Brothers, sisters, friends, lovers, are now torn asunder,
and bidding each other a long farewell, are driven
weeping to the plantations they are bought for. Some-
times they turned desperate, fancying that the white
people intended eating their flesh, making red wine of
their blood, and powder of their bones. They were
treated in the following manner : — At break of day a
signal of three smacks of a whip called them to work,
when each betook himself with his spade to the plan-
tation, where they worked almost naked in the heat of
the sun. Their food was bruised or boiled maize, or
bread made of manioc, a root for which we have no
name in Europe ; their clothing a single piece of
linen. Upon the commission of the most trivial
off'ence, they were tied hands and feet to a ladder, where
the overseer approached with a whip like a postilion's,
and gave them fifty, a hundred, or perhaps two hundred
lashes upon the back. Each stroke carried off its por-

68 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

tion of skin. The poor wretch was then untied, an
iron collar with three spikes put round his neck, and
he was then sent back to his task. Some of them
were unable to sit down for a month after this beating
— a punishment inflicted with equal severity on women
as on men. In the evening, when they returned home,
they were obliged to pray for the prosperity of their
masters, and wish them a good night before they
retired to rest. (There is a refinement of cruelty in
these forced prayers worse than the lash itself.) There
was a law in force in their favour called the Code Noir,
which ordained that they should receive no more than
thirty lashes for any one offence — that they should not
work on Sundays — that they should eat meat once
a- week, and have a new shirt every year ; but this was
not observed.''

In America, and other countries distant from the
continent where slaves are produced, self-interest leads
the slaveholder to feed his slaves with sufficient
food, that, like well-fed beasts of burden, they may
do their work well. In Mauritius there was no such
motive ; the slave-producing country was within a
few days' sailing, and the supply inexhaustible. As
slaves were abundant and provisions dear, the great
problem was to extract from them the maximum of
labour, and to feed them at the minimum of ex-
pense. On this point M. Sonnerat remarks — " I
have known humane and compassionate masters who,
instead of maltreating them, tried to mitigate their
servile condition, but they are very few in number.

DEATH PREFERABLE TO SLAVERY. 69

The rest exercise over their negroes a cruel and revolt-
ing tyranny. The slave, after having laboured the
whole day, sees himself obliged to search for his food
in the woods, and lives only on unwholesome roots.
They die of misery and bad treatment, without exciting
the smallest feeling of pity, and consequently they
never let slip any opportunity of breaking their chains
in order to escape to the forests in search of inde-
pendence and misery." So miserable was their exist-
ence that they welcomed death as a friend, and often
committed crime in the hope of being executed.
Montgomery Martin mentions the case of one who
broke his master's furniture in his absence, in the
hope that, on his returning home, he would run him
through with his sword. St Pierre saw a woman
throw herself from the top of a ladder, and others,
broken alive, endure that horrible punishment without
a cry. A better idea of their treatment may be de-
rived from the " Code Noir,'' which was drawTi up for
their protection, than from citing isolated cases of
cruelty. This Code Noir was well named : intended to
repress cruelty, it is itself one of the darkest records
of human cruelty. On perusing its different articles,
the thought naturally suggests itself, What must have
been the cruelties of slavery, when this Code, every
page of which seems written in blood, was drawn up
from feelings of humanity?

"Art. 27. The slave who strikes his master, his
mistress, or their children, with contusion or effusion
of blood, or in the face, shall be punished with death.

70 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

" Art. 28. And as to attacks or assaults committed
by slaves against free persons, it is oui* will that they
be severely punished, even with death, if such a case
occurs.

"Art. 82. The fugitive slave absent for a month,
counting from the day when his master has denounced
him to justice, shall have his ears cut, and be marked
with a fleur de lys on one of his shoulders ; and if he
commit the same offence during another month, count-
ing in the same way from the day of denunciation, he
shall be hamstrung, and marked with a fleur de lys
on his other shoulder; and the third time, he shall be
punished with death.

" Art. 88. All our subjects of the said countries, of
whatever quality and condition they may be, are
hereby prohibited from torturing their slaves by their
own private authority, or from causing them to be tor-
tured under any pretext whatever, or from mutilating
any of their members, or causing them to be mutilated,
under the penalty of having the slaves confiscated, and
being proceeded against by special process ; be it law-
ful for them only, when they believe that their slaves
have merited it, to put them in chains, and to beat
them with rods or ropes." If these laws were con-
sidered humane, what must have been the enormities
of the system which they were meant to repress !

The love of music and dancing is so deeply rooted
in the heart of the African, that even slavery could
not extinguish it. It might have been expected that
the slaveholder, satisfied with the labours of his slaves

THE CODE NOIR. 7]

during the day, would have left them some hours
of relaxation during the night. "Sometimes they
appointed a rendezvous in the middle of the night,
and, under the shelter of a rock, danced to the
dismal sound of a bladder filled with peas; but the
approach of a white person, or the bark of a dog,
immediately broke up the assembly. They had also
dogs with them, and these animals knew perfectly,
even in the dark, not only the white man, but the dog
that belonged to him, both of whom they feared and
hated, and howled as soon as they appeared. The dogs
of the whites seemed on their parts to have adopted
the sentiments of their masters, and at the least encou-
ragement, would fly with the utmost fury upon a slave
or his dog.''* The Code Noir had its punishment for
these assemblies : — " Slaves belonging to different mas-
ters are prohibited from assembling by day or by night,
under pain of corporal punishment, which cannot be
less than whipping or the fleur de lys; and in case of
frequent repetitions of the offence, and other aggravat-
ing circumstances, they may be punished with death:
this is left to the will of the judges.'' Thus the law
gave the slaveholder the power of control over his
slave by day and by night, and made him his " chattel"
as much as the spade with which he dug the earth.
Many of these poor creatures were roused to such a
state of despair, that all ordinary means failed to give
expression to their anguished feelings. On the quay
St Pierre saw some of them so overpowered with grief,

* St Pierre.

72 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

that no burning tear or suffering cry could give them
relief, and in silent despair they bit the cannon to
which they were tied, like mad dogs.

It might have been expected that the softer sex,
whose hearts are ever ready to overflow with sympathy
at the sight of human suffering, would have done
much to alleviate the miserable condition of the slave.
It is with sincere regret that we are compelled to state,
that the records of slavery present woman less in the
guise of a guardian angel, watching over the poor
slave, and speaking words of womanly sympathy and
hope, than in that of an avenging fury, brandishing
the whip and causing it to drink the black man's
blood. There could not be a stronger argument against
the system of slavery than its power to transform one
whom God has endowed with a softer and finer or-
ganisation than man, with a readier sympathy and a
warmer heart, into a being who resembles more the
dark creations of heathen mythology than the sober
realities of actual life. Female slaveholders shewed a
power of invention and a refinement of cruelty in
the punishment of their slaves to which the stronger
but less imaginative sex failed to attain. The estate
is still pointed out in the district of Flacq, on which
an act of cruelty was perpetrated which has no coun-
terpart in the annals of crime. A young negress had
excited the jealousy of her mistress, through the atten-
tions which she received from her husband. In the
absence of the latter, his wife caused the slave to be
seized and baked to death in an oven. A Creole lady,

FEMALE SLAVEHOLDERS. 73

dressed as an Amazon, used to join the parties that
went in search of the fugitive slaves, and to shoot them
down wherever she found them. St Pierre alludes to
the case of a female slave, who ran up to him one day,
and throwing herself at his feet, besought his inter-
cession with her mistress. She was obliged to sit up
so late at night, and to rise so early in the morning,
that she could find no time for sleep ; and if she hap-
pened to allow herself to drop asleep during the day, her
mistress caused her lips to be rubbed with ordure. If
she failed to lick this off she was consigned to the
lash. At St Pierre's intercession she was promised
more lenient treatment; but after his departure was
probably treated with still greater severity, as the
utterance of a complaint was considered a crime, and
punished as such. On another occasion he had paid a
visit to a Creole lady, when, her dogs happening to
quarrel, she commanded a slave to separate them. As
he did not shew sufficient alacrity in obeying her
orders, she seized a branch of a prickly shrub, with
which she struck the dog and the slave with such
effect, that the one ran howling away and the other
was covered with blood. "It seemed to be a pretty
general opinion that the crudest of owners were old
women, and those who had been slaves themselves.
One instance of the former was notorious at Mahd-
bourg. In the immediate neighbourhood of that

village there resided a Madame de , I forget her

name — a rich, avaricious, high-born, cruel old lady.
She had a fine estate, beautifully situated on high

74 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

grounds, overlooking the bay; it was in the highest
state of cultivation, and she owned some hundreds of
slaves, who, meet them where you might, could be at
once distinguished by the prominence of their ribs and
vertebrae, the haggard melancholy of their looks, and
not unfrequently by the wheals on their backs. The
whole country rang with stories of her cruelties, per-
petrated in secret floggings, in which the old fiend
gloated over the agonies of her victims, and some-
times condescended, it was said, to operate herself." —
Voyage to Mauritius.

The amount of crime committed by the slaves is
small, if the treatment to which they were subjected
is taken into account. They were accused of being
such gluttons that they stole victuals from the neigh-
bouring houses; but this charge proves only the
sordid character of their masters, who did not pro-
vide them with sufficient food. When too old to
labour they were turned out of doors, to find their food
as best they might. St Pierre saw a miserable old
creature, all skin and bone, cutting ofi" the flesh of a
dead horse to eat. They were accused of being so idle
that they took no manner of interest in theii' master's
business, and rarely performed what they were set
about. It must be remembered, however, that their
labour was compulsory, that they had no personal in-
terest in the matter, and received no reward for their
services. A French slaveholder, transported to Mada-
gascar, and obliged to labour as a slave beneath a broil-
ing' sun, would probably have been as idle and disobe-

MAEOONS. 75

dient. Their women were accused of preferring to destroy
their children rather than bring them into the world.
This charge, if true, proves how horrible must have
been the working of a system that could overpower the
maternal instinct, and make the poor mother prefer
death to her offspring, to training them up as a race of
slaves. They were guilty at times of arson and poison-
inp:, the latter a crime difficult of detection, from their
acquaintance with the many poisonous plants, common
to Mauritius and Madagascar. But then there is a
point beyond which the human mind, if unsustained
by Christian principle, can endure no longer, and seeks
relief either in the annihilation of self or the removal
of the cause of suffering. But the most common
offence with which the slaves are charged, is that of
marronage,OT escaping from their masters. And why
should they not? The love of liberty is one of the
most powerful passions implanted in the human heart,
and there was no principle of affection or gratitude to
bind them to their masters. Certain death, after a few
years of liberty and misery among the mountains, was
the best fate that they could expect. They were hunted
down like wild beasts, and shot without mercy. The lives
and property of their former masters were in a measure
in their power, and yet the crimes of arson and murder
were rare, when compared to the temptation. Some-
times when these Maroons were attacked, the women
saved the lives of the men by the sacrifice of their own
liberty. St Pierre saw two negro women at the house
of a planter, who had saved the life of a fugitive slave,

76 CEEOLESfAND COOLIES.

by throwing themselves with tears at the planter's feet,
and thus affording their companion an opportunity of
escape, at the moment when he was' about to be put to
death.

Another mode of desertion was to seize upon a pirogue
or fishing boat, and to make for Madagascar, which
is about five hundred miles distant from Mauritius.
"They seemed," says Grant, "to have had an instinc-
tive knowledge that the distance of the country was
not in proportion to the length of the voyage, and
would direct their hands to the point where it lay,
and exclaim in their corrupted French, " ^a blanc la li
beaucoup malin ; li couri beaucoup dans la mer la haut,
mais Magascar li la."* This opinion sometimes in-
cited them to undertake the most desperate actions,
and they would make the most daring attempts to
return to their homes. Sometimes they would regard
us with a most ferocious aspect, as they have adopted
the belief, since the affair at Port Dauphin, in their
island, that the wine we drink is the blood of negroes.
After their escape into the mountains and forests of the
Isle of France, they would endeavour to get possession of
a canoe or other small boat, along the coast, wherever
they could find it, and shewed not only uncommon cou-
rage, but also address and activity, in putting to sea.
At other times they contrived to make a large pirogue
or canoe of a single tree, some of which are large in this
island, and in one of these they would trust to the mercy

* "The white man is very cunning; he runs about a great deal in
that direction, but Madagascar is there."

MAROONS. 77

of the waves, and attempt a passage to Madagascar,
nearly five hundred miles distant, with a mere calabash
of water and a few manioc or cassada roots. It has
also happened that when they have found themselves
too numerous for the canoe to contain them with
safety, they would alternately embark and swim through
the voyage." Though many of these adventurers were
lost, some of them have been known, by the force of
the currents and the favour of the winds, which gener-
ally blew that way, to have regained their native land,
having been recognised by French people who had seen
them at Mauritius. Sometimes they have even been
known to make for the continent itself, over the stormy
and pathless ocean; and though the majority perished,
some succeeded. Such were the extremities these ill-
fated beings resorted to, to escape from an existence
absolutely insupportable**

Similar attempts seem to have been made at a
later period to escape from the Seychelles Islands,
where the slaves were treated with the same harsh-
ness as in Mauritius. Montgomery Martin relates
that H.M.S. Barracouta picked up a frail canoe
made out of a single tree, near the equator, and an-
other about a hundred miles ofif the coast of Africa ;
it contained five runaway slaves, one dying in the
bottom of the canoe, and the other four nearly ex-
hausted. They had fled from a harsh French master
at the Seychelles, committed themselves to the deep
without compass or guide, with a small quantity of

* Pridham, St Pierre, &c.

78 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

water and rice, and trusting to their fishing-lines
for support. Steering by the stars, they had nearly
reached the coast from which they had been kid-
napped, when nature sunk exhausted; and the Bar-
racoiita just arrived in time to save four of their lives.
So long as the wanderers in search of home were able
to do so, the days were numbered by notches on the
side of the canoe, and twenty-one were thus marked,
when met with by the British vessel.

It could scarcely be expected that Christianity should
have made much progress among the slaves, seeing that
they met with such treatment at the hands of men pro-
fessedly Christian, or that the prayers which they were
compelled to offer up every evening for the welfare of
their masters could have been uttered with much sin-
cerity. Apart from this form, in itself a mere mockery,
they seem to have known Httle or nothing of Chris-
tianity. They retained the superstitions and practised
the idolatrous rites peculiar to their native land. Like
the Chinese, they had a peculiar and extravagant feel-
ing of respect for their ancestors, and it was an unpar-
donable insult to speak disrespectfully of their kindred.
They were in the habit of casting lots for the purpose
of gaining an insight into the events of the future.
They usually bore about their persons some object — it
might be a small piece of wood or of cloth — which was
regarded as a talisman or charm, and known by the
name of grisgris. Many, at the present day, of those
who are nominally Christians, wear these grisgris,
w^hich they use much in the same way as the Roman

" LE BANANI." 79

Catholics do their rosaries. The marriage ceremony
was occasionally performed, the planter being the offi-
ciating priest. It consisted simply in a recommendation
of mutual fidelity and forbearance, with a threat of the
lash should either party violate its engagements. Of
course the recommendation of the planter would have
much eftect, being in such excellent keeping with his
own example and daily life. Any neglect of this recom-
mendation in the case of the males was punished with
the driver's whip ; in the case of the females the whip
was handed to the husband, who had usually the mag-
nanimity to forgive his wife.

Their only period of rejoicing was at the com-,
mencement of a new year. This festival, still known
and observed under the name of "Le Banani," re-
sembled in some respects the saturnalia of the
Romans. It derived its name, not from the French
word for a year, but from the fruit of the bananier, or
banana tree, of which the slaves were very fond, and
with which they were permitted to gorge themselves on
this festive occasion. So pleasant were their remini-
scences of this indulgence, that they were in the habit
of reckoning time, not by years, but by the number of
banana feasts which they had enjoyed. This festival is
still observed, and negro servants, who are tolerably
sober during the rest of the year, claim the riglit of
getting drunk for three days on this occasion, which is
a period of general license, shared in by the Coolie
inmigrants as well as the descendants of the slaves.

Attachment to their native land was not a mere senti-

80 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

ment; it was incorporated with, and formed part of,
their religious belief. They believed that when the
soul quitted the body it returned not to God, but to the
place of their birth, there to exist under some other
form — a belief, perhaps, traditionally connected with
the doctrine of the metempsychosis which has exercised
such a powerful influence over the inhabitants of the
East. The desire that their bodies should be interred
in their native land was perhaps as influential as the
love of liberty in inducing many of them to put to sea,
and thus expose themselves to a lingering death. This
desire, probably connected in some way with their re-
ligious belief, is still prevalent among the inhabitants
of Madagascar. When Radama led an army of 50,000
men into the lowlands of Madagascar, every five soldiers
bound themselves by a solemn vow, that the survivors
should carry back the bones of those who died or were
slain, so as that their ashes might mingle with those of
their forefathers. The pestilential fevers engendered
by the swampy plains that surround the sea-coast, cut
off" nearly 4^0,000 of his followers, and the survivors, re-
garding their promise as sacred, bore back their flesh-
less bones to their native place.

They seem to have regarded the monkeys, with
which Mauritius abounds, as a species of the human
race, possessed of superior abilities to themselves, but
cautiously concealing their talents for fear that the
planters might reduce them to slavery. It was a
common remark among them — "Ah! Zacko beaucoi^
malin, li n'a pas voule causer, li connd bien, si/li

NEGEO SONGS. 81

causer, li blanc li faire travailler;" — " Jacko is very
cunning, he won't speak; he knows very well that
if he spoke the white man would make him work."
The language spoken by the slaves was a species of
broken French, intermingled with words belonging to
the different dialects spoken in their native land. It
differed considerably from modern Creole, which has
been enriched by the contributions which it has levied
from English, Hindustanee, and the different languages
of the Indian peninsula, so as to become a complicated
lingual olla podrida, the analysis and dissection of the
component parts of which will puzzle the philologist of
future ages. The crushing influences of slavery could
not repress the negro's innate love of music and song,
which found vent in a species of poetry remarkable
for its quaint simplicity. A gentleman belonging to
the colony, M. Cretien, made a collection of these
negro songs, which are worthy of the examinafbion
of all who are interested in the construction of lan-
guages by a primitive and half-savage race. The
following song, celebrating the few joys of which slavery
admitted, will give an idea of the Creole spoken by the
negroes: —

I.

" Moi rest6 dans en p'tit la caze
Qu'il faut baisse moi pour entr6
Mon la tdte touch e son faitaze
Quand mon le pie touche planc6
Moi te n'a pas besoin lumiere
Le soir quand moi voule dormi,
Car pour moi trouve lune claire,
N'a pas manque trous Die merci.
F

82 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

** Mon lit est un p'tit natt' Malgace
Mon I'orielle morceau bois blanc,
Mon gargoulette un'vie cabbase,
Ou moi met I'arack, zour de I'an,
Quand mon femm' pour fair' p'tit menaze^
Sam' di, comme 9a vini soupe
Moi fair' cuir dans mon p'tit la oaze
Banane sons la cendr' grille.

III.
"A mon coffre n'a pas serrure
Et jamais moi n'a ferme li.
Dans bambou comme 9a sans ferrure
Qui'va chercbe mon langousi?
Mais dimanche si gagne zourn6e
Moi I'achette morceau d'tabac
Et tout la s'maine moi fais fumge
Dans grand pipe, a moi carouba."

This unique production would suffer by translation.

The condition of the slave population was gradually
improved till the year 1829, when an ordinance of the
Governor in Council conferred most important benefits
upon them, and paved the way for their emancipation.
When that period arrived, great anxiety was felt by the
planters lest there should be some outbreak, or attempt
to retaliate for the injuries which they had endured.
The event proved that there was no ground for such
apprehensions. The negro is naturally a forgiving
animal, and his joy at finding himself at length a free
man, and being permitted to wear shoes as a symbol
of liberty, absorbed every other feeling. Those who
obtained their freedom, assumed rather patronising
airs towards those still in a state of slavery. An amus-
ing instance of this is related by Mr Backhouse, but to

SHOES SYMBOLICAL OF LIBEETY. 83

appreciate it thoroughly, one must have witnessed the
mock-airs of dignity which negroes assume towards
those whom they esteem to be their inferiors. An
emancipated slave was familiarly addressed by one of his
former comrades, still a slave, " Do you not see that I
am a white man?" was the haughty rejoinder. " Look
in the fountain, and behold your face.'' " Ah, but look
at my feet, and behold my shoes/' Leather, not colour,
was the test of freedom. Instead of the emancipated
slaves committing outrages on their former masters,
the reverse of this seems to have sometimes occurred.
Backhouse alludes to the case of a negress, who had been
shot at and wounded by order of her former master, as
she was leaving his premises, because she had bought
up the residue of her term of apprenticeship. No
punishment was inflicted on her cowardly assailant.
The man who had taken her into his house acknow-
ledged that his conscience was uneasy at having con-
cealed some outrages against slaves, that had come to
his knowledge, but, when called upon to give evidence
in this case, he declined. The chief charge against the
negroes, after their emancipation, was that their women,
instead of working in the fields as they had been wont
to do before, preferred remaining at home and nursing
their children. This appeared singular to Mauritius
planters, who regarded them as destitute of maternal
affection, but English mothers will judge leniently of
their conduct in this respect.

More than twenty years have now elapsed since the
abolition of slavery, and the evil passions evoked by

84? CREOLES AND COOLIES.

that act of tardy justice have abeady in a great mea-
sure subsided, if not died out in Mauritius. What-
ever effect that measure may have produced in other
British colonies, in Mauritius it cannot be regarded
as otherwise than a positive blessing both to the slave
and to the planter. It gave to the one liberty, and
to the other wealth. It is a singular fact, that during
the existence of slavery, with the slave market almost
at their doors, and every facility for the importa-
tion of negroes, the planters of Mauritius were and
continued to be poor, while, after the emancipation,
through the introduction of free labourers from India,
those of them who have not become the victims of
luxury or usury, have attained a degree of material
prosperity previously unknown. In a word the more
enlightened among them admit that free labour is
cheaper and more economical than slave labour, and
that the immense quantity of sugar now annually ex-
ported could never have been produced under the
system of slavery. Every year witnesses fresh inroads
upon the forests, and the formation of new plantations,
the capital expended on which may always be recovered
by good management in the course of a few years. The
Abbe Eaynal states, that this colony, while in the pos-
session of the French, instead of paying its own expenses,
cost France eight millions of livres annually, and re-
commends that this settlement, as well as Bourbon,
should be abandoned. In 1855, the revenue of the
colony was ^348,452, and its expenditure oE'Sl 7,839,
leaving a surplus of £30,613. The accumulation of

EX-APPEENTICES. 85

surplus revenue in the treasury from 1850 to 1855,
amounted to £161,915. If the planters have not all
as satisfactory a balance in their favour at their bankers,
it is because some of them, of late years, have indulged
in a reckless expenditure, which could not fail to in-
volve them in difficulties. If the effect of the abolition
of slavery had been exactly the opposite — if instead of
raising the colony from comparative poverty to a degree
of unprecedented prosperity, it had plunged it into in-
extricable difficulties — the justice of that measure would
have been still the same. That measure was not
grounded on expediency, but on a principle often acted
on before, but first enunciated by Lord Mansfield.
Fiat justitia, mat coelum.

That their emancipation was an unqualified blessing
to the negroes, no one, who compares their past with
their present condition, can for a moment doubt. The
most of the old race of ex-apprentices have died out,
and those who remain in many cases bear on their
bodies proofs of the workings of slavery more convinc-
ing than the pages even of St Pierre. When they
found themselves their own masters, the former slaves
preferred supporting themselves by cultivating small
patches of land in the highlands of Moka and Vacoua,
to labouring in the fields of their former masters. If
they had acted otherwise, they would have shewn them-
selves unworthy of liberty; it would have been like a
galley slave resuming the oar, when told that he was
free. Their descendants have been much blamed for
manifesting the same antipathy against agricultural

86 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

labour, but without reason. "You ask me/' said a
negro, whose father and mother had been slaves, " why
I will not work in that field — I will tell you: In that
field my father worked as a slave, and was lashed as a
slave, and do you think that I would work upon a spot
that I cannot think of without pain?" If a planter
had had the misfortune to be hanged, his son would
scarcely select as the site for a new house the place
where the scaff'old was erected. We should be just to
the negro, and remember that he is a man with the
same feelings as other men.

The descendants of the slaves have become the
mechanics, the shopkeepers, the fishermen, the coach-
men, and the market gardeners of the colony. In these
different capacities, they obtain far higher wages than are
paid to the Coolie immigrants, who are employed as
agricultural labourers. The lowest class of labourers,
who are employed in unloading the ships, can make a
dollar a-day with rations ; and it is scarcely to be
expected that they should work in the fields at a lower
rate of wages. They are not so industrious or enter-
prising as the same class in Europe, but their wants are
so few and simple, that they can be easily supplied by
two days' labour every week. Few people labour with
their hands from the mere love of labour, and if the
poor negro can make enough to supply his daily wants,
he is philosopher enough to be satisfied. He only
labours that he may enjoy with the produce of his
labour that dolce far ni^nte, which he esteems the
highest happiness of which his nature is capable.

NEGEO LAUGHTER. 87

This class have adopted all the exaggerated forms of
politeness practised by the white Creoles ; and really the
principle of imitation is so admirably developed in the
negro, that they go through all the different modes of
salutation with a stately gravity which leaves little to
desire. It is amusing to see two old slaves, who are
friends, meet one another in the street. The soldier's
battered shako worn as Paddy wore his coat, or the
old hat coeval, perhaps, with La Bourdonnais, is grace-
fully raised from the head, and, after mutual salaams
and shakings of the hand, affectionate inquiries are
made about Madame, and the other members of their
respective families. Sometimes, from no apparent cause,
except perhaps an exuberance of animal spirits and a
thorough enjoyment of their present liberty, or appre-
ciation of their own highly polished manners, they
burst forth into fits of inextinguishable laughter.
Their laughter is irresistible. It is like the uncorking
of a champagne bottle or the gushing forth of waters
from a fountain. It rises from the depths of the
African's interior, expands his chest, swells his throat,
lights up his eye, opens his mouth, exhibits his teeth,
and then after certain convulsive throes, comes bub-
bling forth like sparkling wine from a narrow-necked
bottle. It is not like ordinary cachinnation, the affair
of a moment, performed without cessation from the
work in hand. His laughter is so to speak a serious
afi'air, which unfits him for every kind of labour
and absorbs all his faculties. He looks as if some
chemical process was going on within him, result-

88 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

ing in the production of laughing gas, and causing
involuntary explosions. His whole body shakes under
the influence of the laughing demon that has seized
upon him; and it is sometimes a quarter of an hour
before the fit is over. You may see no cause for
laughter. You may have addressed him in the gravest
manner without thinking of laughing yourself, or of
being the cause of laughter in others. And yet some
invisible agency has affected his risible faculties, and off
he goes, hick ! hick ! till sometimes he rolls upon the
ground in an agony of convulsive enjoyment. Like
Charles Lamb, when he elicited the laughter of the
young sweep by his fall, you feel rather pleased at
being the involuntary cause of so much mirth to such
a miserable creature. You may be hungry or pressed
for time, yet his laugh is irresistible. It is so tho-
roughly infectious, that you must join in it through pure
sympathy. We believe that Heraclitus himself could
not have resisted a negro's laugh ; and that if Uncle
Tom had known how to give a hearty guffaw at the
right time, even Legree could not have found it in his
heart to whip him to death.

The ci-devant slave population and their descendants
retain their original taste for dancing and music. Even-
ing reunions for dancing, though not so frequent as im-
mediately after the emancipation of the slaves, are still
highly popular. These assemblages are objectionable
in many respects, and the Eoman Catholic priests have
very properly set their faces against them. No race
has natui'ally a finer ear or a keener enjoyment of the

AN AFEICAN OECHESTEA. 89

charms of music than the African. The military band
plays on the Champ de Mars once a-week, and there
is always a large circle of blacks listening to the music.
It is evidently thoroughly appreciated^ and enjoyed,
especially by those gamins that seem as indigenous to
the streets of Port Louis as to those of Paris. Their
merry black eyes sparkle with pleasure, their heads and
feet move in harmony with the music, and sometimes
they describe somersets in a kind of ecstasy of enjoy-
ment. The quickness and correctness of the African
ear would be almost incredible to those who have not
observed the rapidity with which they master the
intricacies of the most difficult pieces of music. When
a new piece of music has caught the popular ear, it is
no unusual thing to hear it whistled from beginning to
end with perfect accuracy by boys who have only heard
it once or twice. I have heard the opera of " Lucia di
Lammermoor" performed in this way by a band of
workmen engaged in their labours. Each one had his
part, waited his turn, and struck in with a precision and
correctness that might have done honour to a well-
trained orchestra. When this primitive music was
performed by tailors, it was amusing to observe the
stitching increasing or diminishing in rapidity with
the time observed in the opera, and the perfect gravity
with which these blackbirds "warbled forth their wood-
notes wild." Their masters encourage them in their
musical propensities, finding that the slowness of the
work when the music is slow is compensated for by
its rapidity when the music is quick, and that when

90 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

there is. no music, there is more chattering and laugh-
ing than work. Many of them are no mean performers
on the violin and violoncello. The instruments used
by their fathers were of a simple character. Besides
the bladder filled with peas alluded to by St Pierre,
I have seen three kinds of musical instruments used by
the ex- apprentices, and common enough formerly,
though now rather rare. The first consists of a num-
ber of reeds of the same length, skilfully joined to-
gether, and resembling in shape " Pan's pipes,'' though
on -a much larger scale. The performer holds the in-
strument by the end, and discourses a species of music,
the beauty of which is perceptible only to the initiated.
I have only seen it played once; the performer was an
old ex-apprentice, probably the last minstrel of his race.
The second resembles a small violin, with this difference
that it has only one string. One evening, in walking
up the valley of the Pouce, my attention was attracted
by a species of suppressed humming, like the noise
made by a bumbee. On approaching the place from
which the sound proceeded, I found an old grizzly-
headed negro strumming on his one string, and sing-
ing a Creole song. I respectfully requested this modern
Paganini to exhibit the powers of his instrument, which,
after some excuses, prompted no doubt by that modesty
which distinguishes all great performers, he did. On
observing my suppressed laughter, he slunk away,
thinking, perhaps, with other unappreciated geniuses,
thet he lived in an age which was unworthy of him.
The third was a sort of rudely-constructed guitar, played

THE NEGEO'S THEEB BESETTING SINS. 91

by a native of Madagascar, while he sung one of the
songs of the Hovas.

The three besetting sins of every slave population
are lying, drunkenness, and dishonesty. The ci-devant
slaves and their descendants have not yet been able to
cast them aside. A strict adherence to truth is not
a leading feature in the character of any portion of
the Creole population of Mauritius, and the blacks are
just what the system of slavery made them. They
have never been taught to speak the truth, and when
they do speak it, it is only when they stumble on it by
accident. The Roman Catholic bishop, whose position
entitles his opinion on this subject to much weight, in
a return made to the Legislature, scrupled to name
more than two who could be received as evidence upon
oath. If some modern Diogenes were to start with his
lanthorn, he would find it very difficult to discover these
two men. Either of them would be a rara avis in
terris, and very like a black swan.

The want of money prevented the slaves from in-
dulging largely in drunkenness, except at the great
annual festival. Their large earnings and the numerous
canteens situated at the corners of almost every street,
place temptations in their way from which they were
formerly exempt. And yet they must be regarded, on
the whole, as a far more sober and temperate class than
the working-men of our cities at home. I have never
seen any of them drunk on the streets except the lowest
class of blacks employed about the bazaar and the
shipping, and their conduct in this respect forms a

92 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

favourable contrast to that of the British soldiers and
sailors, who may be seen staggering in the streets at
any hour of the day.

On examining the statistics of crime since the aboli-
tion of slavery, one cannot avoid being struck with its
apparent increase. A closer analysis, however, will shew
that almost all the heavier charges have been brought
against Indians, of whom nearly a hundred thousand have
been introduced into the colony within the last twenty
years. In the course of six years, I knew of only one
case of murder committed by a negro, who was exe-
cuted, and another of culpable homicide. Pilfering, or
petty theft, is the most common offence charged against
the negroes. Acting on M. Prudhomme's principle,
La proprUU c'est le vol, they endeavour to indem-
nify themselves for the injuries they have received at
the hands of society by appropriating all the poultry,
fruit, and vegetables they can lay their hands upon.
The Roman Catholic priests have failed to teach them
a sounder morality, though they have introduced the
confessional as a sort of mental torture to deter them
from dishonesty. Many ludicrous instances are cited
of the manner in which the searching examination of
the confessional is sometimes eluded by negro cunning.
The following may serve as an example, though its
force is much weakened by translation : — A priest in
the country had had his poultry-yard cleared at different
times of all its feathery tenants, from the speckled
guinea-fowl to the tender turkey which he had reserved
for his own Christmas dinner. Suspecting that the

THE NEGEO AT THE CONFESSIONAL. 93

thieves were among his own flock, he assembled his
hrehis noirs for confession. The first penitent was the
man who had stolen the turkey, with which he had
feasted his friends there assembled. After some time
he came forth, perspiring at every pore, and panting
with excitement. The contest had been a keen one,
and he had to relate his experience to the others, who
had to pass through the same fiery ordeal. " Him say,
*Do you ever steal ducks?" Me say, ' Never, father ;
me never steal ducks.' *Do you ever steal geese?'
' Never, father ; me never steal geese.' * Do you ever
steal guinea-fowls or chickens?' 'Never, father; me
never steal guinea-fowl or chicken.' 'Good; me
absolve you. Go.' But (here there was a shout of
laughter, heartily shared in by his audience), the
good father ! he never ask if me stole turkeys ; " —
("Mais li bon pere! li n'a pas demande, si moi fin
vole di' dindes").

94 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

CHAPTER HI.

The Coloured Population— Their Origin— Their Former Subjection —
Prejudices against them — Their Exclusion from Society— Insult
offered to them in 1857 — Government Pupils — Advantages of Home
Education — Morality — Truthfulness of Character — Coloured Women
— Their Taste for Music — Theodore Hook — White Creole Popula-
tion— Their Former Character — The Planters — The Creoles of Port
Louis — Their Character — Creole Shopkeepers — State of Morals —
Creole Ladies — Marriage — Divorce — Gray Season — British Popula-
tion— Causes of Estrangement between them and the Creoles —
Duelling — The Press — Unfitness of the Colony for British Institu-
tions.

The coloured population, under which designation are
included all those who have a mixture of European and
African blood in their veins, form a very important
part of the Mauritius community. Their existence
dates from the origin of the colony. The pirates from
Madagascar brought with them their negro wives and
coloured offspring, and the adventurers who flocked to
it from Europe were rarely restrained by moral or reli-
gious principles from the indulgence of their passions.
They introduced female slaves from the coast of Africa
and the neighbouring island of Madagascar, who occu-
pied the ambiguous position of being at once the mis-
tresses and the slaves of their purchasers. The children
were the slaves of their fathers, and could be sold as
other slaves ; but paternal aff'ection often led the parents

ANTIPATHY AGAINST COLOUR. 95

to effect their liberty, and at death to bequeath to them
their property. Hence arose a third class, distinct from
the European and African races, but having the blood
of both circulating in their veins, and partaking largely
of the character of both. The face is the face of
Japhet, but the skin is the skin of Ham, varying in
colour from the darkest ebony, where the regular
features mark a mixture of European blood, to
the purest white, where tradition alone preserves the
remembrance of the presence of African blood. The
antipathy against the smallest admixture of African
blood amounts to a positive passion. A man may have
wealth, learning, official rank, all that elsewhere can
command respect, and yet let there be but three drops
of African blood in his veins, tradition will preserve
the remembrance of them, and point to these as the
plague-spot, the touch of which would be pollution.
Marriage with such a man would be a voluntary act of
Pariahism on the part of a white woman, and lead to
her exclusion from the society of all the purs sangs in
the colony. In Europe, we often hear of noble blood ;
but in Mauritius, all blood that circulates in white
men's veins is noble, and the taint of colour the only
bar sinister. Between the white and coloured popula-
tion there exists a feeling of bitter hatred, the result of
long years of domination and insult on the one hand,
and subjection and suffering on the other. Under the
French Government, the coloured people were subjected
to many humiliations, which were keenly felt by a class
naturally vain and ambitious of social equality. The

.96 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

white man might insult the coloured man with impu-
nity; the code of honour justified the former in refus-
ing to accept a challenge from the latter, if he had the
presumption to have recourse to such a means of re-
dress. If a coloured man met a white man in the
street, he was obliged to leave the pavement and salute
him by lifting his hat. In the militia, formed for the
defence of the island, no man of colour could bear arms
in a company of white men, and he was prohibited
from sending his children to the college attended by
the children of the other class. Death is generally
supposed to overturn all social distinctions, and to place
all men on the same level ; but the antipathy to colour
extended even beyond death, and prevented the ashes
of the coloured man from reposing beside those of his
white brother. While these invidious distinctions have
now been in a great measure obliterated, the feelings
of hostility between the two classes are still as inveterate
and deeply rooted as before. Apart from the antipathy
to colour which every white man feels, and which every
good man wiU subdue, other causes have led to this
estrangement between two classes that have so much
in common. The antipathy to colour felt by the white
Creole women is stronger than that exhibited by the
other sex, and has led them to refuse to associate with
the coloured population in any way. One cannot avoid
sympathising, to a certain extent, with the feeling that
has led them to adopt this measure of exclusion. The
respectable Sarahs of Mauritius married life could
scarcely regard with a favourable eye the dusky Hagars

EIVALEY BETWEEN WHITE AND COLOURED WOMEN. 97

and sepia-coloured Ishmaels with whom their husbands'
licentiousness surrounded them. After the island came
into the possession of the British, and the galling social
distinctions before alluded to were overturned, the
coloured women endeavoured to indemnify themselves
for previous insults by outstripping the white in the
luxury of their toilettes and the splendour of their
equipages. They took possession of the fashionable
drive on the Champ de Mars, and the first seats in the
theatre. The white women, scorning to enter into open
rivalry with a race that they despised, withdrew from
all the places which they frequented, and induced their
husbands (who, having relations with both parties, were
disposed to remain neutral) to take up the quarrel.
Jealous of seeing their wives outshone by a class whom
they esteemed to be little better than slaves, the hus-
bands refused to recognise the coloured women in
public, or to admit them to their houses. Passion,
however, was more powerful than prejudice, and the
secret liaisons between the white men and the coloured
women were continued. Those who were unmarried
bequeathed their property to their coloured offspring,
and thus strengthened the feeling of ill-will which their
relatives already entertained against the coloured people.
It has been already shewn how, in this way, about
three-fourths of the immoveable property in the colony
has been transferred from the white to the coloured
population, and this transference has naturally widened
the gulf t)etween them. They have also come into col-
lision in the arena of political strife. The white French

98 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

population are, from language, habit, and association,
passionately attached to the land which gave their
fathers birth. The Governor of Bourbon, after a recent
visit, truthfully described the island as boiling with
French feeling, and his intercourse was confined to the
white population, who make no concealment of their
desire to see the Union Jack replaced by the Tricolor.
The coloured population, on the other hand, who owe
their enjoyment of equal rights, and their immunity
from previous wrongs, to the British Government, are
loud in their professions of loyalty and attachment to
their benefactors. There is reason to suspect that these
protestations of loyalty proceed as much from hatred of
the French party as from attachment to Great Britain,
and no great dependence could be placed upon them in
any emergency.

It is to be regretted that the local Government and
the press, instead of trying to root out the feelings of
hatred and jealousy subsisting between these two
classes, and to produce more friendly relations between
them, have inadvertently or wilfully aided rather to
widen the breach. There are men among the coloured
people equal in intelligence, wealth, and character to
any of the white Creoles, and the Governor should ex-
tend to these men the enjoyment of the same social
as well as of the same political rights. If these men
are worthy to sit in the Council-Chamber, they are
worthy also to sit at the Governor's table, and to be
present with their families at the Governor's balls.
These matters may appear trifling, but it is upon trifles

GOVERNMENT-HOUSE BALLS. 99

that the peace of mixed communities often depends.
Hitherto the Government have j)layed into the hands
of the French party, vrho, without abating their claims
or renouncing their nationality, are ready to profit by
every concession, and have treated the coloured peojjle
with neglect. The great ambition of both classes is to
obtain admission to the Government-House balls ; and
while cards of invitation are lavishly distributed among
the white Creoles, so that it is not unusual to see there
shopkeepers' assistants, and others still less reputable,
whose only claim to admission is their pur sang, the
most distinguished families among the coloured popula-
tion are excluded. The excuse for this exclusion is
that, if the coloured people were invited, the whites
would not come. We believe that the love of dancing
among this class is stronger than their repugnance to
colour; but, even if it were otherwise, it seems scarcely
right to treat one part of the population with injustice
in order to gratify the foolish prejudices of the other.
Like the nation whose blood circulates in their veins,
the coloured population are far more ambitious of social
than of political equality, and it seems scarcely politic
to wound the feelings of that portion of the community
who profess attachment to British institutions, in de-
ference to the absurd prejudices of those who treat
them with ridicule and scorn. So long as the coloured
people are excluded from Government House, their
white neighbours will treat them as an inferior class,
and subject them to the same social ostracism which
they see practised by their Governors. Accordingly,

100 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

the white Creole will meet the coloured one, in all
matters of business, on a footing of equality, will sit
with him in the Council- Chamber, and even associate
with him as his partner in trade, but he would as soon
think of asking him to his table as of conferring that
honour upon a passenger by a cholera ship from India.
The press also, by the scurrilous articles which ap-
pear in its daily columns, keeps alive these prejudices,
and profits by the evil passions which it fosters and
excites. The organ of the French party, in which able
articles occasionally appear, covers the coloured people
with bitter sarcasms, which are all the more keenly
felt, because they are sometimes true. The organ of
the coloured people retaliates by foretelling the time
when the degenerate descendants of the whites shall
become the cooks and coachmen of the coloured men,
and by appealing to the evil passions of the latter class.
The English party have no organ, but the only gazette
edited by an Englishman joins in the senseless cry
against the coloured people, and treats them and their
leaders with undisguised contempt. An instance of the
good feeling shewn by the white Creole towards the
coloured, and of the correct taste exhibited by an Eng-
lish editor, may be given, as a better indication of the
state of manners than any general description. In 1857,
a coloured man was chosen Mayor of Port Louis.
There is a special box at the theatre set apart for the
Mayor, when he appears there after his accession to
office. A number of jeunes gens got hold of a negro,
made him insensible with drink, clothed him in even-

PUPILS OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE. 101

ing costume, witli gloves and cravat complete, and
placed him in this condition in the Mayor's box. His
appearance there was the signal for a disgraceful riot,
the whole blame of which rests with the white popula-
tion. The English editor, instead of decrying the con-
duct of the young men who had thus wantonly insulted
some sixty thousand of their fellow-citizens, treated the
whole affair as an excellent joke. The coloured people
failed to see it in this light, and one of their number
committed an assault upon the editorial person, unjusti-
fiable no doubt, but not more so than the cause which
gave rise to it.

The Koyal College is the only institution in the
colony where the youth of both classes meet on a foot-
ing of equality, and have an opportunity of trying their
intellectual strength. There can be no doubt but that
the admiration, which the minds of the young feel for
intellectual prowess, is stronger than the antipathy of
colour, and that the honourable position which the
coloured lads have attained there, by their talents and
perseverance, has caused them to be regarded in a
different light by those who formerly depreciated their
abilities. Two of the best pupils are sent home every
year to be educated at the expense of the Government,
and each of these receives <£200 per annum for that
purpose. It is highly honourable to the coloured
people, that during the last five or six years, all the
pupils, with two exceptions, selected for this honour
belonged to their number, and that the selection was
grounded on superior merit alone. Most of them have

102 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

adopted the legal or medical profession, and some of
them have made a distinguished appearance when they
entered the lists with the young Anglo-Saxons, who
had every advantage of training. No money could be
better expended than that devoted to the education of
these young men. Besides exciting their gratitude, it
makes them familiar with the English language and
with English institutions, removes many foolish pre-
judices, teaches self-respect, and enables them to take
a position in society to which they could never have
otherwise aspired. Imbued with a feeling of deep
admiration for England, the alma mater that supplied
them with intellectual food, they spread this feeling
.among their countrymen, and excite their wonder by
telling them of mountains loftier than the Pieter Both,
and of lakes larger than the Grand Basin. Their
superior intelligence makes them the leaders of their
party, and the influence thus acquired is employed in
increasing the feeling of attachment to the country
which has conferred upon them such advantages. The
benefits derived from this liberal grant are not confined
to the recipients. The parents of other young men are
induced to send their children home, that they may
receive the same education as the Government pupils;
and none but those who have witnessed the strong
feelings of affection existing between Creole parents and
their children, can appreciate this sacrifice of feeling to
duty. There can be no doubt but that the coloured
population are growing every year in intelligence and
wealth, and that they are more sincerely attached to

STATE OF MOEALITY. 103

Great Britain than the other section of the Mauritius
community. It is the duty, therefore, of the local
Government to shew that they have no sympathy with
the prejudice against them, and to admit them to the
same social equality as the other class.

The standard of morality cannot be expected to be very
high in a place where slavery has been recently abolished.
The curse of slavery is not confined to the slave ; it extends
also to the slaveholder and his descendants for succes-
sive generations. Power uncontrolled by law, by moral
principle, or by public opinion, must always have a
deteriorating efiect upon its possessor, as well as upon
the victims on whom it is exercised. In the one it
engenders violence and cruelty ; in the other, meanness
and falsehood. The children of the slaveholder add
generally to the violence and cruelty of their parent,
the meanness, the dishonesty, and the falsehood of his
slaves. The coloured population, who are descended
partly from slaveholders and from slaves, share in
those vices, which are, in a good measure, the result of
their peculiar position. They are not worse, perhaps,
than the whites, but they might be much better, without
being over-righteous. Vice does not obtrude itself so
much on public notice, or shew such a shameless face
in the streets of Port Louis, as in those of some of our
large towns at home; but the most decent cities are
often the most dissolute. The absence of vice from the
streets is generally a proof that vice, instead of being
an excrescence, forms part of the system, discernible
everywhere beneath the surface. Those familiar with

104} CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

Continental or Eastern life will admit this truth, though
at first sight it appears paradoxical. The marriage
relation, formerly little regarded, and still easily dis-
solved, is now more generally observed; and it argues
something for an improving tone of morality among the
English part of the community, that young men known
to have contracted one of those disgraceful connexions,
once so rife in this colony as to form part of its moeurs,
are excluded from society, and obliged to associate with
others in the same lapsed condition.

The soil of Mauritius is not favourable to the growth
of truthfulness of character, and the coloured people„are
accused by the white Creoles of being specially blame-
worthy in this respect. The Englishman, however, who
has sat in a Mauritius court of justice, and listened to
the wholesale perjury, and undisguised contempt for the
sacred nature of an oath, exhibited by the Creoles of all
classes, will be reminded, perhaps, of the old Latin pro-
verb about Clodius, and be disposed to regard falsehood
as a vice common to the whole Creole community, in-
stead of being the characteristic of the coloured people.
" There is not a coloured man in the colony who would
not perjure himself for a sixpence,'' is the frequent
charge brought against this class by the white Creoles,
whom the consciousness of their own defects might
teach a little charity. Time, education, a purer form of
religion, and intercourse with Englishman, who, what-
ever their other faults may be, despise lying as the
meanest of all vices, will do much to correct this evil
habit.

PIANOS IN PORT LOUIS. ] 05

The better class of coloured women have slender,
graceful, elegant figures, sparkling black eyes, and deli-
cate, finely-cut features, with abundance of dark wavy
hair, of which they are extremely vain. They are
passionately fond of dress, and willingly submit to any
privation throughout the year to be enabled to appear
at the races in the gayest silks that the looms of Lyons
can produce. Marriages between them and English-
men of the lower class are not unfrequent, and they
seem to be faithful wives and affectionate mothers. It
is only of late years that female education has begun
to make progress among this class ; and it must be
admitted that far more attention is paid to the cultiva-
tion of outward graces, than to imparting a sound
and useful education. Music is an accomplishment
cultivated among all ranks ; and while the coloured
women have naturally fine voices, they are too apt to
mistake strength for skill, and howling for harmony.
Every house in Port Louis, however poor, seems to
possess a piano. It appears to be the mark of respect-
ability, like Thurtell's gig. It may be an old ricketty
tumble-down thing, with half its chords in a state of
collapse, and rheumatism in every joint. It may be
less harmonious than an Indian tomtom or a Chinese
gong. It may have seen service for successive gene-
rations, and Virginia even may have discoursed on it
in the days of La Bourdonnais. White ants may have
hollowed out tunnels in its inward recesses, and left it
scarcely a leg to stand upon. No matter. So long as
it can stand or totter on its legs, it is still a piano,

106 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

and a pledge of respectability. It forms part of the
dowry of Ambroisine, who bequeaths it to Artemise or
Angeline, her first-born, who treasures it as a mark of
past and present respectability. Good society must
draw the line somewhere, and in Mauritius it does not
extend its circle beyond a piano. Every family with a
piano is respectable ; and as almost every family wishes
to be respectable, almost every family has a piano.
The noise that is made by these tinking old impostures,
especially in the evening, when that noise is accom-
panied with the howling of all the dogs in the neigh-
bourhood, whose nervous system it seems to affect
unpleasantly, might form an appropriate concert at a
witches' sabbath. I may appear to write strongly on
this subject, but I had the misfortune to live two
months in a house where I was surrounded by musical
neighbours ; and really I would not wish my greatest
enemy a worse punishment than to be located two
months in the same locality. It is related of Theodore
Hook, of witty but somewhat disreputable memory,
whose disease of the chest was caught in the Mauritius,
that, excited one night to frenzy by the howling of a
dog, the tinkling of a piano, and the voice of a dusky
S3rren, in a neighbouring compound, he rushed into the
house and declared that he would eat up dog, piano,
and all, if they did not stop the dreadful noise.

The white Creole population of French descent re-
presents almost all the different elements that compose
European society. It is composed of the descendants of
the husbandmen from Bourbon and the pirates from

MILITARY LICENSE UNDEE THE FRENCH. ] 07

Madagascar, who took possession of the island after
the departure of the Dutch — of the officers, soldiers,
and sailors, connected with the French East India
Company, who settled in the colony — of the old noblesse
who found refuge there, after having lost their all in
the French Kevolution — and of adventurers of different
professions, who, being better known than trusted in
Europe, found an asylum and a field for the exercise of
their talents in Mauritius. It took many years before
elements so diverse could amalgamate, so as to present
the settled form which society has now assumed. The
more peaceful of the inhabitants suffered severely from
the military license of the soldiers sent from France,
many of whom were desperadoes who had been guilty
of crimes of the deepest dye at home, and who often
murdered one another with their bayonets on the small-
est provocation. The officers, in some cases, seem
to have been little superior to the men whom they com-
manded. A French colonel having met with a repulse
from a planter's wife, employed one of his men to
burn the planter's house and all its inmates, during
his absence. This horrid villany was actually perpe-
trated, and the assassin detected and executed; but
the officer who had employed him was beyond the
reach of the law. This was not the last act of the
tragedy. The planter, on his return, finding all his
earthly happiness wrecked, challenged the murderer of
his family, and fell by his hand. Such a crime could
never have been committed by a British officer, or been
allowed to pass unpunished by British law.

T08 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

The first settlers were, as at the present day, engaged
in mercantile pursuits, or employed in the cultivation
of the soil. The island became a sort of entrepot for
the trade between India and Europe ; and the mer-
chants, enjoying a sort of monopoly, exacted more for
European goods than they could be sold at in India, and
made Indian goods dearer than in Europe — a state of
things which continues till the present day. The plan-
ters were engaged in the cultivation of indigo, cotton,
and sugar, but apparently with little success. Baron
Grant, writing in 1746, mentions that the different
undertakinojs for raisinsj cotton and indigo had failed.
One sugar plantation had in some measure succeeded.
It produced a sugar resembling the coarser honey of
Europe, which was sold at two sous per lb. The more
wealthy adventurers were absolutely starving, from
having been compelled to purchase provisions for them-
selves and their slaves, for whom they had no adequate
means of support. Who, on looking at this picture,
could recognise Mauritius of the present day ?

The description given by St. Pierre of the character
and morals of the planters and merchants of this island
is very unfavourable. He describes them as destitute
of every feeling of honour, probity, or humanity, of all
taste for literature or the fine arts, and as living in
utter neglect of those domestic institutions on which the
peace and happiness of every community depend. The
character ascribed by him to the women is far more
pleasing. There were about four hundred planters and
one hundred women of condition in the colony. The

PALANQUINS SXJPEESEDED BY CARRIAGES. 109

latter resided principally on the estates, and rarely
visited the town, except at Easter for confession, or on
the occasion of a ball. Like their descendants, they
were passionately fond of dress, and glad of every
opportunity of breaking the dull monotony of their
existence. They were sober, temperate, devoted to their
children, lively and pleasing in their manners, and more
virtuous than might have been expected in such a state
of society. Admiral Kempenfelt describes them as fond
of constant exercise, and bold equestrians — accomplish-
ments which their fair descendants assuredly do not
possess. In beauty and elegance of shape he held them
superior to their countrywomen in France, but they
were inferior in point of education, some of them being
so ignorant that they could not even read. When they
went abroad they were carried in palanquins, each of
which was borne by eight slaves. The use of carriages
was almost unknown ; there was only one in the colony
when it was captured by the English. Palanquins have
now been superseded by the elegant vehicles of Jones;
it is found more economical to keep two large horses
than to feed eight slaves. The appearance of a palan-
quin borne by eight persons would excite as much
sensation in the streets of Port Louis at the present
day, as that of a sedan-chair borne by two venerable
chairmen in the streets of London.

The white Creole population of Mauritius may be
divided into two classes — the planters, and the inhabit-
ants of Port Louis. The planters are generally a fine,
frank, hospitable race, passionately fond of field-sports.

110 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

and possessed of great physical strength. From their
constant exposure to the open air, and their active
habits, they have suffered less from the influences of
the climate than the inhabitants of Port Louis, and
may well bear comparison v^ith the strongest and
healthiest of their kinsmen in France. There is much
of the simplicity of early patriarchal times in their
mode of life. Often there are four or five families
living on the same estate, all bound together by the
closest ties ; and, though occupying different pavilions
or cottages, meeting together daily, and dining at the
same common table. A rude hospitality is exercised to
all comers, and the Englishman who has tact enough to
enter into their feelings, and to make some allowance
for their prejudices, is always sure to be welcome.
While they have retained their nationality, and identify
themselves in feeling and habits with the old country,
they are not insensible to the advantages which they
enjoy under the British flag, and there is perhaps more
of bravado than sincerity in their often- expressed desire
to be reunited to France. If an attempt should ever
be made to effect this reunion, the most dangerous
class would be the planters. Accustomed from child-
hood to the use of fire-arms, acquainted with every
pass where a stand could be made, hardy, vigorous, and
capable of enduring great bodily fatigue, the planters
would be a much more formidable foe than the degene-
rate race that throngs the streets of Port Louis. So
long, however, as England retains the supremacy at
sea, no attempt at insurrection in Mauritius can be

INHABITANTS OF POET LOUIS. Ill

permanently successful, and no worse consequence is
likely to ensue from a popular outbreak, than the coer-
cion or intimidation of a weak or vacillating Governor.
The large sum received by the planters in compensa-
tion for the loss which they sustained by the emanci-
pation of their slaves, enabled them for a time to in-
dulge in the most reckless expenditure, and led to the
formation of habits which ultimately involved them in
great distress, and in many cases compelled them to
sell their estates, which fell into the hands of a different
class. Those who have been able to retain them are
scarcely ever free from debt, and the capitalists who
advance them money exact such an exorbitant interest,
that their victims have little chance of ever escaping
from their power. Usury is the vulture that is preying
upon the vitals of Mauritius society.

The Creoles of Port Louis differ very much in appear-
ance and character from the hardy, active planters.
They live, as it were, in a different climate. There is a-
difference of fifteen degrees between the temperature
of Port Louis, where the heat during six months of the
year is most oppressive, and that of Moka and other
country districts. The effect of this difference upon
the human frame is perceptible in the appearance of
the inhabitants of Port Louis. They do not possess the
same bodily strength, or the same mental energy, as the
hahitans. The effects of the heat are visible in their
attenuated forms and pale languid faces. The immode-
rate use of tobacco, with the odour of which the atmo-
sphere of Port Louis is constantly impregnated, adds to

112 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

the enervating influences of the climate, and aids in
producing that indolent listlessness of appearance with
which strangers are so much struck. The natural viva-
city of the French character seems to have evaporated,
and to have given place to a general indifference to
every thing except the dread of cholera, which occa-
sionally produces a sort of temporary insanity. They
share in the same defects of character, and are marked
by the same vices as the coloured population. Truth
and honesty have few admirers, and the man of genius
is the smart man, in the American sense of the term.
Few of them have ever left their native isle; many of
them have scarcely ever been beyond the bounds of the
muncipality; and a trip to Bourbon is a feat that is
seldom attempted. The effect of their being cribbed
and confined within such narrow limits is, that their
mental vision becomes equally circumscribed, and that
they are literally little better than children of a larger
•growth, " pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.''
They are not deficient in natural abilities, but they have
no field for their exercise, and their minds are too often
seriously occupied with trifles unworthy of their notice.
A friend related to me that he spent an evening in the
society of some young Creoles of the better class. The
whole conversation was occupied with the consideration
of the important question, whether it was better to wear
straps or to dispense with them as an appendage of dress.
One cannot be long in their society without being struck
with the narrowness of their views and the littleness of
their minds. Those who have been educated in Europe

CEEOLE SHOPKEEPERS. 113

for the bar or the medical profession, have of course
more enlarged and liberal views, and some of the most
amiable and intelligent members of Mauritius society-
are to be found in the ranks of these two professions.
Their residence in a temperate climate during the period
of youth seems to have had an expanding influence
upon their bodies as well as their minds, they being
in many cases as superior to their countrymen in phy-
sical organisation as in mental prowess. The advantages
of home education are now more felt, and a greater
number of Creole youths are sent to Europe for their
education than used to be in former years.

The shopkeepers of Port Louis are a singular class.
They have nothing of that obsequiousness, or anxiety to
please, which distinguishes those engaged in the same
business in Europe. Each one seems to feel that his shop
is his castle, and that an apology is due to him from every
customer who takes the liberty of entering. In Europe,
a customer thinks that, in buying from a shopkeeper,
there is a mutual benefit to the buyer and the seller,
but the Mauritius shopkeeper practically dissents from
this theory of reciprocity. He thinks that all the bene-
fit is on the side of the buyer, and is at no pains to
conceal his opinion. When a customer enters, he con-
tinues quietly smoking his cigar, and stares vacantly at
the intruder. The demand for any article leads him
apparently to take a mental review of all his goods be-
fore he ventures on an answer. That answer is gene-
rally in the negative. If the customer points out the
article, which he is too lazy to look for, he shews his
H

114 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

gratitude by demanding four times its value. He prices
his goods, not by their intrinsic value, but by the appa-
rent necessities of the purchaser, and even when he gets
the price he demands, he drops the money listlessly into
the till, with the general air of a man who has been
rather ill-used in the transaction, and whose dignity has
been in some measure compromised. The best way to
do shopping pleasantly is to approach the shopkeeper
as if he were really some great person, to exhibit to-
wards him all those exaggerated forms of politeness,
which even the negroes have picked up, to engage him
in general conversation, and, at a convenient oppor-
tunity, to mention casually that you require such an
article, and that you would feel infinitely obliged to any
one who could supply you with it. The shopkeeper, in
a friendly way, produces the article, and marks his sense
of your politeness by exacting sixty instead of a hun-
dred per cent, of profit. If you wound his amour
propre, he will avenge himself upon your purse. It is
a striking and significant fact, that the Jews, who have
overrun all the great cities of the East, and mono-
polised certain branches of trade, have never been
able to gain a footing in Mauritius. They found
the field already occupied by a class who had mastered
the art of usury in all its details, and whom they could
teach nothing in the practice of unprincipled exaction.
The colony has gained an unenviable notoriety in the
commercial world ; and the disclosure of some of the
commercial transactions of the last half century would
redound little to its honour. That task must be left to

CEEOLE LADIES. 115

some abler and more practised hand ; but a stranger
cannot but be struck with the laxity of principle and
utter disregard of truth, and of the sacred nature of
an oath, evinced by the Creoles. Perjury is so common
in the courts of justice that it excites little notice, and
recently a leading member of the bar announced, in open
court, the rather startling principle in ethics, that perjury
was no longer perjury when used by a son to screen
his father from punishment. Something has been
done of late years to purify the bar, and to produce a
healthier tone among its members ; but the Hercules
who undertook the task found himself unable to
cleanse this Augean stable from the moral pollution
which had accumulated in it for more than a century.
The Mauritians know when and how to give a sop to
Cerberus.

The simplicity of manners and dress attributed to
the Creole ladies by the early writers, is now un-
known. They no longer walk to the bazaar in the
morning dressed in light muslin, and wearing no other
covering for the head than that which nature has be-
stowed. Negresses and women of colour may be seen
occasionally in this dress and coiffure ; but the Creole
ladies never venture out except in carriages for the
morning and evening drive. The simple costume worn
in the days of Virginia has been discarded for the most
recent modes from Paris, and the fair Creoles of
Mauritius can scarcely be distinguished from their fair
kinswomen of France, save by that morhidezza — that
elegant languor of expression — which is all their own,

116 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

and which has gained much admiration for those
amongst them who have appeared in Parisian society.
" The ladies of the Isle of France/' says Laplace,* " en-
joy a just reputation for beauty, both in Europe and
the Indies ; they are pretty and graceful, with charming
figures ; their disposition is lively and gay, which is in
some cases joined to a careful education." Those of
them who have been educated in Europe, are admired
for their graceful and attractive manners. The natural
vivacity of the French character is sobered by the effects
of climate, and their minds enlarged by mingling with
European society. They are passionately attached
to their sunny, romantic isle, and long for it amid
all the fascinations of European society. The Eng-
lishmen who have intermarried with them have rarely
been able to leave the island, or if they have, they ex-
j)erienced much difficulty in persuading their wives to
accompany them. Cases have occurred when they
yielded only at the last moment, when the vessel which
was to convey them to Europe had unfurled her sails.
Then they tore themselves from their beloved isle, with
much the same feelings as those attributed by Beranger
to Mary Stuart, on leaving France. A few have married
officers, belonging to regiments stationed in the colony ;
but these cases are very rare. Marriage in Mauritius
is a very complicated affair in the case of strangers.
The intending Benedict must procure seven witnesses,
ready to swear that to their knowledge he is a single
man. As the Mauritians are ready to swear to any-

* " Voyage autour du Monde."

FACILITY OF DIVOECE. 117

tiling, he has no difficulty in finding witnesses. On
the principle of compensation, perhaps, the marriage
tie is easily dissolved. By the French law, as set forth
by the Code Napoleon, any married couple, dissatisfied
with their condition, and finding themselves neither one
nor two, can regain their liberty, by appearing before a
magistrate, and declaring that they wish to be separated,
on the ground of unsuitable dispositions (incompati-
hilite d'humeur). The magistrate receives their de-
claration, and remands them for twelve months. If they
find themselves incorrigible, and repeat their declara-
tion, they are then formally released from all claim or
tie upon each other. The wife resumes her maiden
name, and the husband, like Tony Lumpkin, is " his
own man again." They are at liberty to marry again,
if so disposed, and occasionally a man marries his own
wife. Montgomery Martin remarks on this point —
" Divorces are frequent, although the marriage rites are
performed with great ceremony, during which bets are
often made as to how long the nuptial tie will remain
unbroken. I was at one table in the island where two
divorced wives were guests of the third consort of their
former spouse, and there was much harmony and glee
at the entertainment." Such cases, however, are now
rare. Most Creoles are satisfied with one wife, a few
more daring spirits venture on two, but I know of only
one who has three.

The lives of the Creole ladies must be very monoto-
nous, except during the gay season, which is opened by
the ball given on the Queen's birth -day at Government

1 1 8 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

House. After this the garrison and masonic balls fol-
low in rapid succession, and for a period of several
months, they have an opportunity of indulging their
taste for dancing and dress. While the priests have
obtained a stronger hold over them than over their
more sceptical husbands and brothers, when the bishop
excommunicated the Free-masons, the event proved
that their passion for dancing was stronger than their
dread of the Church's displeasure. It was dreadful, no
doubt, to imperil their souls ; but then the masonic
balls were charming — and, enfin, they could not but
dance. And they did dance, in defiance of Popish
bulls and priestly restrictions. The poorer families are
said to subject themselves to many privations through-
out the year, that Adele, Eugenie, and the other unmar-
ried daughters of the house, may make a distinguished
appearance during the gay season.

The British population, besides the military, consists
of the Government employes, of about thirty merchants,
four or five planters, the professors of the Koyal College,
the Government-school teachers, and a considerable num-
ber of old soldiers, who have left the service and settled
in the colony in different capacities. Many of the last
class have married coloured wives and become almost
identified with the coloured population. The British
residents of the better class form a small community by
themselves, and no one who has lived amongst them
and enjoyed their warm-hearted hospitality, can look
back to his intercourse with them without feelings of
unmingled pleasure. Most of them reside in the

ENGLISH SOCIETy. 119

Plaines Wilhelmes and Moka districts, and some of
their country-houses are furnished with elegance and
surrounded with every comfort. Most of them have
received a liberal education, have seen much of the
world, and are possessed of polished manners and great
warmth of heart. Any case of real distress is sure to
excite their warm sympathy, and to call forth their
liberal assistance. Their comparative disregard of re-
ligious ordinances is, in a great measure, the result of
the unfavourable circumstances in which they have been
placed, and of late there has been a marked improve-
ment in this respect. A few Creole families mingle
freely in English society ; but, as a general rule, the two
classes keep aloof from one another. Various causes
have been assigned for this coolness. It does not ap-
pear that the entente cordiale ever prevailed to a large
extent, and it is not probable, so long as the colony re-
mains French in feeling, language, and habits, that it
ever will. The Creoles have all the susceptibility of a
people whose vanity has been wounded by the imposi-
tion of a foreign yoke. When they feel themselves
aggrieved, their usual cry is, " Nous sommes un peuple
vaincu."' They forget that Great Britain has never
treated them as a conquered people ; that under her
flag they have attained a degree of material prosperity
to which they could never have otherwise aspired; and
that it is their own fault if the position of the island is
not eventually the same as that of any other British
colony. The terms agreed upon at the capitulation of
the island have been strictly observed, and they enjoy

1^0. CREOLES AND COOLIES.

a larger amount of personal and political liberty than
they ever possessed before that event. Their property
and rights have been respected, and if their national
susceptibility had been too acute to allow them to live
beneath the British flag, the island of Bourbon lay at a
convenient distance. It would have been easy to tran-
sport themselves, with their families, to that colony of
France, and thus retain their connexion with the
mother-country. If Mauritius had been an English
colony conquered by France, a system of repression
would have been adopted that would have trodden out
all the remains of a lingering nationality, and in less
than half a century assimilated the island to any other
French colony. England has pursued an opposite
course. She has fostered national prejudices and pas-
sions, and shewed an undue leaning in favour of the
French party, till Mauritius has become the enfant
gate among her colonies, dissatisfied it knows not why,
and aspiring to something it knows not what.

There was nothing in the capitulation of the island dis-
honourable to French courage. The soldiers could point
proudly to their eagles, and say, " Vous n'avez pas pris
nos petits martins.'' It was simply the yielding of an
inferior to a superior force, and two honourable courses
remained for the inhabitants — either to sell their pro-
perty and remove to another French colony, or to >
make a virtue of necessity, and identify themselves
with the conquering people, after the peace between
France and England, when all hope of being restored to
the mother- country was cut off. They have adopted

DUELLING. 121

neither of these courses. They have remained in the
colony, under the protection of the British flag, and yet
they openly avow their hatred and contempt for British
institutions and manners. Mauritius is in feeling,
manners, and almost in language, as much a French
colony as it was fifty years ago, and every Englishman
resident in it feels himself a foreigner in a British
colony.

After the capture of the island, before there was a
press to act as a safety-valve for national susceptibility,
it found vent through the medium of frequent chal-
lenges sent to the British officers and residents. The
Champ de Mars was the field of contest, and these hos-
tile meetings were of frequent occurrence, till one of
the governors, an earnest, practical man, put down duel-
ling, by banishing the combatants from the island,
without inquiring into the merits of the case. This
summary procedure had the desired efi'ect; and for
some years back there has been only one hostile meet-
ing, the principals in which were rival editors. There
was more ink than blood spilt on the occasion. Their
pens were sharper than their swords.

Other causes besides wounded national vanity have led
to the separafii on which at present exists between French
and English society. The intercourse between these two
classes seems to have been more frequent and familiar
before the abolition of slavery — a measure which excited
the bitterest opposition in the colony, and was regarded
as the prelude to its ruin. As physical resistance to this
measure was impossible, the Creoles avenged themselves

122 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

by expelling the English and their partisans from their
coteries. The latter resented this conduct by estab-
lishing an exclusiveness as stringent as that of the
Creole party, and thus there resulted an estrangement
of feeling, which, heightened and increased by other
causes, has not yet died out. The local press, instead
of trying to bridge over the gulf that separates the two
parties, and to produce more amicable relations between
them, profited by this dissension. In such a small
community there are few topics of much interest for
the press to discuss, beyond the current price of Ched-
dar cheeses, and other articles of produce or consump-
tion, and yet there are four daily papers, each of which
has its editorial leaders. As there are few local sub-
jects to afford the material for the construction of these
leaders, the editors find a never-failing resource in
appealing to old prejudices, in lamenting the loss of
nationality, and in pouring contempt upon the manners
and institutions of the British. The press of Mauritius
has had more to do in fostering bad passions, and in
keeping alive the slumbering embers of national anti-
pathy between the two classes, than any other cause.
It has trafficked in and made merchandise of feelings
which, in the natural course of things, would soon have
died out. To serve its own selfish ends, it has pan-
dered to popular passions and prejudices, and kept open
a festering sore, that might otherwise have healed up.
It has mistaken licentiousness for liberty, and over-
stepped those bounds which public opinion has, in all
free countries, drawn around the sacred precincts of

LICENTIOUSNESS OP THE PEESS. 123

private life. In all enlightened communities, public
opinion is an effectual check upon the licentiousness of
the press ; and the press of every country may always
be regarded as an indication of the character of the
people. Judged by this test, the character of the people
of Mauritius cannot appear in a favourable light to
other communities ; and there can be no doubt but that
the press has produced a strong impression against
them at home. The liberty of the press can only be
an advantage in communities where an enlightened
public opinion will serve as a check to prevent it from
degenerating into licentiousness. In Mauritius there is
no public opinion, and if the Home Government were
to impose a censorship on the Mauritius press, similar
to that which is established in Bourbon, they would
confer a boon which would be productive of the best
effects, and be hailed as a blessing by the more en-
lightened members of society.

The attempt to implant British institutions — the
slow growth of centuries — in the Mauritius soil, has
been an utter failure. In this island they have no
more life or vitality than the leafless poles known in
France as trees of liberty, and have as much resem-
blance to the parent institutions as these poles have to
real trees. These institutions have sprung up naturally
on the British soil, but they cannot be transplanted to
the tropics. The Town Council of Port Louis, an insti-
tution of recent creation, has fallen into merited con-
tempt, and it is almost impossible to induce any respect-
able person to accej)t a seat in it. Instead of trying

124 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

to introduce better sanitary arrangements into the town
of Port Louis, it sets itself up as a rival institution to
the local Government, and endeavours to act the same
part as the Municipality of Paris in the first French
Eevolution. Trial by jury is the only other British
institution yet introduced, and its working may lead
the Home Government to hesitate before attempting any
other experiment. When the intelligent jurymen, on
whose fiat sometimes depends the life of a fellow-being,
cannot arrive at unanimity, it is not unusual to appeal
to chance or fate for the final decision. This appeal is
made in the same way as that practised by our " city
Arabs" with the copper coins which their industry
has enabled them to collect. Comment upon such a
fact is unnecessary.

There may be some future period when the spread
of education, the extinction of national antipathies, the
establishment of a purer form of religion, and the legi-
timate influence exercised by a well-regulated press,
shall entitle Mauritius to a larger amount of self-
government, and fit her for the reception of British
institutions and the exercise of British rights; but her
best friends must admit that that period has not yet
arrived ; and any attempt to anticipate its arrival
by the premature introduction of organic changes,
foreign to the habits and feelings of the people, can
end only in failure and disappointment. The paternal
mode of government, firmly but mildly administered,
as in the neighbouring island of Bourbon, is the one
best adapted to Mauritius in her present condition. ■

SUPPOSED HEALTHINESS OF MAUKITIUS. 125

CHAPTER IV.

Supposed Healthiness of Mauritius —Quarantine — Want of Cleanliness
— Increase of Population — Cholera foretold in 1851 — Absence of
Hurricanes — Cholera in 1854 — First Outbreak in the Civil Prison —
The SuUany — Erratic Course of Cholera — Drunkards and Chinamen
Escape — Strange Cause Assigned for Cholera — Panic in Port Louis
— Cholera Contagious — Second Outbreak at Flacq — Its Cause —
Massacre of Coolies on Flat Island — Second Outbreak of Cholera
in 1856 — Licentiousness of the Press — Arrival of the Shah Jehan —
Mob at Government House— The Friend of India — Suspension of
Coolie Emigration— Increase of Disease in Mauritius — Influence of
Climate — Monotony of Life the Cause of Disease — The Remedy.

Mauritius long bore the reputation of being one of the
healthiest spots in the world. Isolated, as it were, from
the rest of the world, and fanned continually by the
healthy sea breeze, it was long believed to be exempt
from those pestilential diseases which seem to find their
appropriate home in the East, though latterly they have
forced their way to almost every part of the globe.
The ravages made by cholera in 1819 left in the minds
of the Mauritians a strong feeling of terror against a
second inroad of this pestilence, and as it was firmly
believed that it had been introduced by an English
vessel called the Topaz, they insisted upon the Govern-
ment adopting a stringent system of quarantine, which
proved very annoying to vessels from India, the crews

126 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

of which seldom escape without a few cases of diarrhoea,
which the fears of the Mauritians were ever ready to
magnify into Asiatic cholera. As there was no decided
outbreak of cholera from 1819 to 1854 (although there
is reason to believe that sporadic cases have always
existed), the enforcement of the quarantine laws had
become less strict, and the inhabitants had fallen into
such a state of false security as to neglect even those
ordinary conditions, the observance of which is con-
sidered in all civilised countries essential to the preser-
vation of health. While there are perhaps a thousand
carriages in Port Louis, the houses are destitute of all
those conveniences which an Englishman regards as
essential to the enjoyment of health. The gutters are
uncovered, and the poorer inhabitants are in the habit of
emptying their refuse into them. The effect of a tropical
sun, whose scorching rays have raised the temperature
to 90" in the shade, upon these open gutters, can neither
be conceived nor realised, except by actual experience.
The exorbitant sums exacted as house rent have led the
inhabitants of Port Louis to crowd themselves into
smaller space than can be beneficial either to their
health or their morals. It is not unusual to find five
or six families occupying a house which in England
would barely accommodate one. The Asiatics have
carried this system of crowding to a greater excess than
the Creoles. A single room serves the same purpose
to them as a single house to the Creoles. Five or six
Indian families may be found, in the neighbourhood of
the bazaar, occupying a room of such limited dimen-

INCREASE OF DISEASE. 127

sions, as scarcely to leave sufficient space for their
recumbent bodies, and the stifling atmosphere is im-
pregnated with the intoxicating fumes of gandia, to
which the miserable inmates have had recourse to
superinduce a temporary oblivion. In the larger and
more frequented streets, there is a certain attempt at
cleanliness and decency, but the smaller lanes are reek-
ing with noxious exhalations, which, in the rainy season,
carry death and desolation to the homes of the sur-
rounding population. In the neighbourhood of the
Trou Panfaron, at low water, there are such noxious
odours and pestilential exlialations from the filth that
has been allowed to accumulate in the harbour, that
the inhabitants of that quarter, accustomed from their
infancy to breathe a tainted atmosphere, are sometimes
obliged, in self-defence, to close their doors and win-
dows. The inhabitants of Port Louis, at the present
day, are probably not less cleanly in their habits than
their predecessors ; but it is acknowledged on all hands
that the town has become much more unhealthy in
the course of the last twenty years. The inhabitants
ascribe this increasing unhealthiness to the influx of In-
dian immigrants, who, they affirm, bring with them the
fevers of India. There can be no doubt but that dis-
ease has been much more frequent and intense of late
years; but the principal cause of this is to be found in
the rapid increase of the population, and the neglect
of the sanitary conditions which such an increase ren-
dered necessary for the preservation of health. When
the population of the town was smaller and more

128 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

widely scattered, the miasmatic influences proceeding
from the causes to which we have alluded, being spread
over a larger surface, were less violent in their effects ;
but from the increase of the population, without a cor-
responding increase of houses for their accommodation,
and the neglect of ordinary sanitary conditions, these
miasmatic influences have grown in intensity and power,
and have made fevers, and other complaints formerly
unknown, endemic.

These remarks are intended to shew that there
were predisposing influences to cholera at work be-
fore the actual outbreak of 1854. These influences
were so well known to intelligent medical men, who
did not hold the contagion theory, but believed that
cholera might arise from a tainted condition of the
atmosphere, superinduced by the violation of sani-
tary laws, that some of them expressed their sur-
prise that Mauritius should have been so long exempt
from cholera, and their conviction that a fearful out-
break of that pestilence might soon be expected. This
conviction was announced with prophetic truth by Dr
Mouat, an intelligent officer belonging to the Bengal
medical staff, who visited the colony, and published a
small work upon it and the neighbouring island of
Bourbon, in ] 851. This announcement met with about
as much credence from the Mauritians, as the prophecies
of Cassandra from the sons and daughters of Priam.
They shrugged their shoulders, and characterised him
as " un brave homme, niais tant soit peu fou," point-
ing expressively to their foreheads. They looked upon

HUEPJCANES. 129

him mth mucli the same feelings of surprise, pity, and
ridicule, as the antediluvians may be supposed to have
regarded Noah when he preached a deluge and began
to build an ark. And when at length the sweeping
pestilence came, it found a population, physically and
morally, as unfit to resist its ravages, as the contem-
poraries of Noah to stem the waters of the deluge. The
writer of these pages has no other object in view than
to give a slight sketch of the appearance which things
presented during cholera in 1854. He has no theory
of contagion or of non-contagion to combat or to advo-
cate. He believes that, without adopting the theory of
contagion, there were sufficient local causes at work to
account for the outbreak of cholera. He admits that,
both in 1854 and 1856, there were facts that came un-
der his personal observation that could scarcely be ac-
counted for without the admission that cholera is in
certain cases contagious.

There is a circumstance worthy of remark, although
at first sight it may appear to have but little connexion
with the question of cholera. Of late years hurri-
canes have been of much less frequent occurrence at
Mauritius than formerly. While different causes have
been assigned for this circumstance, the fact itself
is indisputable. It is now nearly twelve years since
a hurricane worthy of the name has visited Mauritius.
The latter months of summer seldom pass away with-
out being accompanied with strong gales, which the
members of the Meteorological Society define as the
last dying gasps of some monster hurricane. But

I

180 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

of late years the colony has experienced none of
those sweeping hurricanes, which formerly proved so
destructive to life and property, and of whose power
such questionable stories are related. The absence of
these hurricanes can scarcely be regarded as an un-
mingled blessing. While attended with much tempo-
rary inconvenience and considerable loss, they had the
immediate effect of sweeping away all the noxious
vapours and exhalations that accumulated in the at-
mosphere, and sometimes for successive days impended
over Port Louis, in the shape of dark clouds, when no
breath of air was stirring, and the temperature was
that of a heated oven. While it was found that the
health of the community suffered before the advent of
a hurricane, a decided improvement was always expe-
rienced after its departure. Like similar outbursts in
the moral world, it purified the atmosphere, and though
devastating in its first effects, proved ultimately a
blessing. The cause of the breaking out of' cholera
in 1854 may be traced perhaps (for on such a ques-
tion, still sub judice, it would be folly to dogmatise)
neither to contagion from the introduction of diseased
Coolies, nor to intercourse between the Sultany and
the fishermen of the coast, but to the accumulation of
noxious vapours and gases in the atmosphere, from
the decaying animal and vegetable matter festering in
the streets and lanes of Port Louis, and the want of a
good rattling hurricane to sweep these vapours and
gases away, and thus purify the atmosphere. Before
searching for the quid divinum as the cause of any

PREVIOUS EXEMPTION FKOM CHOLEEA. 131

public calamity, we ought to look first whether some
quid humanum may not be found sufficient to account
for its occurrence. If it be objected that Port Louis
had continued many years in the same sanitary condi-
tion, without an outbreak of cholera, it must be borne in
mind that of late years there has been a rapid increase
of population, without any effort being made to pro-
vide for their personal cleanliness and health, and that
experience in similar cases shews that when the blow is
delayed it falls the more heavily when it descends.

From 1819 to 1854 Mauritius was exempt from
cholera, or if isolated cases occasionally occurred, they
were not of a violent character, and were passed over
in silence. The island enjoyed a high reputation in
Europe for the salubrity of its climate, the purity of
its atmosphere, and the absence of many of those
causes that make life in the East unpleasant. It was
occasionally visited by invalids from Europe and India,
the former desirous to escape from the severity of a
northern winter, the latter from the scorching sun of
an Indian summer. But this high reputation was not
to extend beyond 1854. The population, sunk in their
ordinary apathy and carelessness, heard with incredu-
lous indifference that isolated cases of cholera had
occurred from the beginning of the year. It was only
towards the middle of May that they were roused
from their state of security by the undeniable proof
that cholera was in the midst of them.

We propose to present a simple statement of the
facts of the case, derived partly from personal ob-

J 32 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

servation and the Eeport of tlie Committee appointed
by Government to investigate the origin of the disease.
The Committee entered on their arduous task in
August 1854, and published the result of their labours
in a Report, which is valuable only from the facts it
contains, and interesting only from the different im^
pressions produced by these facts on the minds of
medical men. It was believed at first, that cholera
manifested the first symptoms of its presence among
the prisoners detained in the jail of Port Louis. The
jail is a large, ill- ventilated building, situated in the
centre of the town. In the month of May 1854, it
was overcrowded with Indian vagabonds, heaped to-
gether without much regard to space, cleanliness, or
the means of respiration. The acting Governor,
moved by the complaints of the planters against the
remissness of the police in endeavouring to suppress
the system of marronage among their Indian labourers,
commenced a razzia against all Indians found wan-
dering in the fields or streets who could not give an
account of themselves ; and soon filled the jail with
men emaciated with want, and therefore predisposed to
disea"fee. On the 14th of May, cholera broke out in the
jail, and its first victim was a Creole of the name of
Emilien. The press, which had lauded the efforts of the
acting Governor to second the wishes of the planters, was
now as loud in denouncing them, and did not scruple
to ascribe the outbreak of cholera to his iU-timed zeal.
Subsequent research, however, has sufficiently shewn
that there were already isolated cases in the colony, and

THE SULTANY. 1 83

that there must have been predisposing causes in the
atmosphere, before the overcrowding of the civil prisons
and the subsequent outbreak of cholera took place.

The only question of interest, so far as regards
the theory of contagion, that presents itself here,
is whether cholera existed in the colony previous
to the arrival of the Sultany, a vessel from Calcutta,
loaded with Coolies, which arrived in the harbour of
Port Louis on the 24th of March. She had left Cal-
cutta on the ] 4th of February. Thirteen days after
her departure, cholera broke out on board, and during
the passage she lost thirty men. On the 25th of March,
the day after her arrival, the Chief Medical Officer
reported the existence of the disease to the authorities,
and requested the removal of the infected vessel. The
letter was forwarded to the Harbour-master, with the
request to take the necessary steps to give effect to this
recommendation. From causes unknown to us, the
vessel remained in the harbour till the 30th of March,
when the Board of Health met, and ordered the Coolies
to be disembarked at Flat Island. But nothing had
been prepared for their reception, and it was only on
the 7th of April that the Sultany left the harbour. In
the interval of fourteen days, which elapsed between
her arrival and departure, five new cases of cholera
occurred on board. The Sultany disembarked her
immigrants on the 9th of April, and returned to the
Bell buoy on the 11th, and received pratique on the
19th of April. The Coolies disembarked at Flat
Island soon regained their health. Only three deatlis

134 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

occurred, and none of these from cholera. The quaran-
tine was raised on the 1st of May, and so fully con-
vinced was the Board of Health of the non-conta-
giousness of cholera, that they decided that there was
no necessity for destroying the clothes which the
immigrants had worn during the passage. The clothes
could have been of no great value in a pecuniary point
of view, and a small sum of money would have been
sufficient to indemnify the owners ; but the Board
of Health no doubt wished, even in the smallest things,
to act consistently with their own convictions.

A strong effort has been made by the contagionists
to shew that the outbreak of cholera followed imme-
diately on the arrival of the Sultany, and that there
were no cases in Port Louis before that event. The
existence of such cases is now, however, fully recognised.
A man of the name of Bonin died on the 2d of January,
of the worst kind of Asiatic cholera. On the 18th ot
January and the 26th of February, two soldiers of the
85th Kegiment were attacked, and subsequently re-
covered. Two other cases occurred at Pamplemousses,
and two at Black River, with what result we cannot
tell. These facts prove that there was cholera, no
matter by what technical name it may be designated,
in Port Louis, before the arrival of the Sultany, and
render it impossible to establish a causal connexion
between these two events. To do so, it would be neces-
sary to shew that there were no cases of cholera in Port
Louis before the general outbreak, and even if this
were demonstrated (which cannot be done), the con-

PKOGEESS OP CHOLERA. 135

nexion between the two events might still be merely a
coincidence in point of time. The Sultany, it will be
remembered, arrived on the 24th of March. No case
of cholera occurred till the 10th of April, when an ex-
apprentice (or old slave), and a child of five years of
age, died in Desforges Street. An interval of seventeen
days thus elapsed between the arrival of the Sultany
and the occurrence of the first isolated case of cholera.
On the loth of April, a washerwoman was attacked,
and on the 16th, two Creole carpenters, one of whom
died. On the 6th of May, the child of one Malfait died
at Grand Kiver. On the 7th, the aunt of the child,
who had nursed it, was attacked, and died on the 8th.
Particular attention is requested to the date of this
woman's death, as much weight has been attached to it.
On the 12th of May, two fishermen died at Grand
Eiver, and on the same day, a female servant in Port
Louis. On the 14th, cholera broke out in the civil
prison, overcrowded with Indian vagabonds. Its spread
among these poor wretches was very rapid. On the
loth of May, there were eleven cases; on the 16th,
seventeen cases ; on the 17th, twenty cases; on the 18th,
eight cases; on the 19th, three cases; and two on the
21st — in all fifty cases in the course of seven days.
The remainder of the prisoners who had escaped from
this fiery trial were then dispersed in different quarters,
some being sent to other prisons, others to an old hulk
belonging to the Messrs Blythe, and the rest to Plat
Island. One hundred and fifty deaths occurred on
board the Alexander, the hulk belonging to the Messrs

136 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

Blythe. No sooner had the disease broken out in the
civil prison, than it spread with great violence and
rapidity through other quarters of the town. Its course
was extremely eccentric, and apparently governed by
no fixed law. One side of a street was sometimes assailed,
while the other escaped. One house would have its
dying inmates, while the next, on the same side of the
street, seemed like the habitations of the Israelites, on
the night of the slaughter of the first-born, to have
blood sprinkled on its lintels and its door-posts, as a
sign to the angel of death to pass it over. Houses
situated in quarters of the town where every species of
filth had been allowed to accumulate, where the air was
poisoned with fetid emanations, and the inhabitants
ill clad, ill fed, and predisposed to disease through
vicious indulgence, escaped ; while the beautiful country
residence of Clairmont, situated on the breezy heights
of Plaines Wilhelmes, and enjoying a delightful climate,
seemed to possess peculiar attractions for the fearful
disease, which swept off its possessor and several of his
dependents. If the seeds of the disease were contained
in the atmosphere, it was not merely in the vitiated and
infected atmosphere that impended over Port Louis
like dark clouds. They were contained even in that
which surrounds the summits of the loftiest mountains.
A Mr Gotre, panic-struck, like many of his countrymen,
at the rapid spread and increasing violence of the
disease, fled from Port Louis, and established himself
with his family near the summit of the Pieter Both.
Death, like the atra cura of the poet, dogged his foot-

CHINAMEN AND DEUNKAEDS ESCAPE. 137

steps, followed him up the lofty declivities of the Pieter
Both, and seized on one of his children. The time
that elapsed between his departure from Port Louis
and the appearance of cholera leaves no foundation for
the supposition that he carried the germs of the disease
with him from the town (were that even possible), but
leads rather to the conclusion that the whole atmo-
sphere, from the low-lying ravine in which Port Louis
is situated to the loftiest summits of the Pouce and
the Pieter Both, was infected. It is a curious fact, that
persons of previously sober habits, who had recourse to
stimulants, under the false impression that they might
serve in some sort as an antidote — and there were many
such — were usually cut off; while confirmed drunkards,
whose constitutions were inured to the effects of ardent
spirits, and who persisted in their usual habits, in
almost every case were spared. Another analogous
fact is, that of eighteen hundred Chinamen who were
resident in Port Louis when cholera broke out, only two
were attacked — a number bearing a very small propor-
tion to that of those who were assailed among the other
races inhabiting the island. Are we to ascribe the
escape of drunkards to the action of colonial rum upon
the coatings of the stomach and the system in general,
and that of Chinamen to their inordinate use of tea and
opium? Or are we to look for an explanation in the
following opinion enunciated with much gravity by a
medical practitioner: — "I look upon predisposition to
be an impoverished or vitiated state of the blood, which
acts upon the nervous system, producing depression of

138 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

spirits and want of moral courage''? Is it true that
drunkenness, or the excessive use of opium or tea, re-
moves all predisposition to cholera, by preventing " an
impoverished or vitiated state of the blood''? Is the
blood of Chinamen and drunkards rendered, by the use
of opium and rum, purer and richer than that of other
men? Is the want of moral courage the result of an
impoverished and vitiated state of the blood, acting
upon the nervous system? If so, a bull, having richer
blood than a man, would possess more moral courage ;
and a soldier, accused of cowardice, could plead as a
valid excuse that his blood at the moment was neither
very rich nor very pure. And, 0 Mauritians, if this
original theory to account for the want of moral courage
be true, in what a fearfully impoverished and vitiated
state must your blood have been during the whole time
of cholera !

Towards the close of May, an aU but universal panic
seized upon the inhabitants of Port Louis. All who
could fled from the town as from a charnel-house of
death. The sacred offices due to the dying and the
sick were forgotten, and many literally left the dead to
bury their dead. The grim phantom of death, stalking
in the midst of them, froze up with his icy touch the
warmth of their domestic affections, and dissolved the
ties of friendship and of love. The motto of all be-
came, as on another disastrous occasion, " Sauve qui
pent." A silence that struck drearily on the heart per-
vaded the streets, usually thronged with sugar traders
and filled with the busy hum of commerce. The

GENERAL PANIC. ] 39

doors and shutters of the houses were carefully closed,
as if this precaution could exclude the entrance of the
invisible but omnipresent foe. The universal silence
in the centre of the town was only interrupted at
times by the peal of the cathedral bells, or the hoarse
chanting of the priests interceding for a departed soul,
or the hollow rumbling of the carts conveying the
bodies of the dead to their last home, without any of
the usual pomp and pageantry of woe. It seemed to
be a city of the dead, abandoned of God, and deserted
by man. The only symptoms of life and movement
were to be perceived in the two great outlets of the
town, leading in the direction of Plaines Wilhelmes and
Pamplemousses. The former leads to the Cemetery, and
was usually crowded every morning during the latter
part of May with vehicles of all descriptions, containing
fugitives, with their most valuable effects, mixed up
with donkey-carts, containing those who could no longer
flee, driven by Malabars, discharging their sad office
with all the stolid indifference of their race. There
might be seen ^neas without Anchises — Lot leaving
wife, daughters, and sons-in-law. behind. Each man
bore with him his lares and penates — the merchant his
iron safe, the negro his bag of rice. Others, in whom
the instincts of affection were stronger, carried off their
parents, wives, or children, and left all else behind.
The miserable blacks at the foot of the Signal Moun-
tain, having no place of refuge in the country, shut
themselves up in their huts, and sought escape from
the consciousness of approaching death in the insensi-

140 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

bility of intoxication. The Indians in Malabar Town
either met death with the indifference of a fatalism
which, with them, is more the result of constitution
than of system, or sought to avert it by the drumming
of tom-toms, or the sacrifice of goats to the goddess
Kal^e, the avenging Nemesis of the Hindoo faith.

The deputy-mayor and several of the town council-
lors fled at the first outbreak. When cholera was only
spoken of as a contingency, and had not yet appeared
as a dread reality, each of these men was a hero in his
own eyes and in those of his constituents, pathetically
eloquent about the sweetness and decorum of dying for
one's country, and ready, like the late Colonel Sibthorp,
to die upon the floor rather than desert his duty. But
when the hour came, they chose to live and not to
die, believing perhaps, with another hero of the same
calibre, that discretion is the better part of valour, and
that there would be little honour in dying for their
country with no spectators present to report the dignity
of their death. No less than five medical men suc-
■cumbed in Port Louis, the victims of their devotion to
the interests of their patients, and their memories are
still embalmed in the grateful recollection of many who
owed their lives to their unremitting care. It is a
pleasing circumstance to relate, that all the ministers
of the Christian religion in the colony remained faith-
fully on the field of duty, and that most of them were
unremitting in imparting the last consolations of our
holy religion to the dying. Their conduct formed a
strikinsr contrast to that of the fup^itives, some of whom

POWER OF FAITH. 141

were professed infidels and scofiers at all religion.
While the Komish priests and Protestant ministers were
shewing the strength and the devotedness which faith
can impart in the hour of trial, those scoffers, who pro-
fessed to have no belief in God, were blanching and
trembling before one of God's creatures, and hiding
themselves among the remote mountains, as if, Hke the
prophet of old, they could flee from the presence of the
Lord.

The disease continued gradually to increase in vio-
lence till it reached its culminating point on the 1 1th
of June, when 243 deaths were reported to the Civil
Commissary at Port Louis. From that date there was
a sensible decrease in the amount of mortality. During
the four days that followed, the deaths reported were
respectively 138, 168, 111, 92 ; on the 16th, the mor-
tality suddenly rose to 213; on the 17th, it decreased
to 92 ; and rose again to 129 on the 18th. From that
day it diminished considerably ; and on the 30th there
were only seven deaths. The last case that occurred in
Port Louis was in October. A Mr Ackroyd, residing
in the valley between the Champ Delort and the Champ
de Mars, was attacked, along with two of his children.
They all died. In the month of May the population of
Port Louis amounted to nearly 49,000 souls. The
deaths regularly reported from the 25 th of May to the
1st of August were 3492, being at the rate of about
fifty per diem. There can be no doubt but that the
mortality reached a much higher figure ; but many of the
Indians buried their dead by the sea- shore, and in other

142 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

solitary places, and made no declaration of the deaths
before the Civil Commissary, It is impossible to state
with certainty the exact nmnber of deaths caused by
cholera in 1854, throughout the whole colony, but it
was probably about fourteen thousand, or about one-
fifteenth of the whole population.

Almost as wonderful instances of the contagiousness
of cholera are related as the one mentioned by that
prince of story-tellers, Boccacio, in the introduction to
the "Decameron." He gravely informs us, that when the
plague visited Florence in 1348, the rags of a poor man
just dead were thrown into the street. Two hogs came
up, and after rooting among the rags, and shaking them
about in their mouths, both in less than an hour turned
round and died on the spot. The reason, perhaps, why
no hogs died a similar death in Port Louis may have
been, that all such animals found wandering on the
streets are at once conveyed to the Town-house, and sold
to the highest bidder by the mayor. Having been kept,
therefore, in the strictest seclusion during the prevalence
of cholera, the pigs of Port Louis were preserved intact,
and thus furnished an additional argument in favour
of the general belief, that if the quarantine laws had been
strictly enforced, cholera would never have appeared.

The arrival of the Sultany, and the outbreak of
cholera in Port Louis, instead of being regarded as
an accidental coincidence, occupied, and still occupy,
in the public mind the relation of cause and effect.
It was currently reported and believed, that the cap-
tain of the Sultany was in the habit of violating the

ALLEGED VIOLATION OF QUAEANTINE. 14S

quarantine laws, and paying visits to a woman of the
name of Malf ait, residing at Grand Eiver. This woman
was a sister of the man Malfait, whose child was attacked
on the 6th of May and died on the 7th. She herself
was taken ill on the 7th, and died on the 8th. Of this
story we can only say, " Se non e vero, e ben trovato."
It was asserted also, that the fishermen of Grand River
visited the Sultany, and exchanged their fish for rice.
A Mr Berichon declared that he saw every evening a
fisherman's boat, bearing the name of Mouton, com-
municate with the Sultany while she was in quarantine.
An advocate of the name of Savy was said to be ac-
quainted with a case of communication with the Sul-
tany. Examined upon the subject, Savy answered with
the laconic indistinctness of a man who does not wish
to compromise himself, '' That after having consulted
with his friends, he could not disclose the facts that
occurred at his office with regard to the fact of com-
munication with the Sultany" The report was, that
Savy, one of a class of legal practitioners peculiar
to Mauritius, had assisted the captain of the Sultany in
recovering a box of sovereigns which he had entrusted
to the keeping of the woman Malfait, and which her
relations were unwilling to give up. Savy's ambiguous
answer tended to confirm this report.

All the medical men examined, with the exception of
two, expressed their belief that cholera was infectious,
and might be communicated by intercourse between
man and man. The instances adduced are favourable
to this theory, and, in fact, can scarcely be explained

144 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

on* any other, unless we are to suppose that these men
were guilty of a breach of good faith, or that they saw
the facts of the case through such a distorted medium
of prejudice as to render their evidence valueless. If
we admit that the instances about to be cited are liter-
ally true, the conclusion that cholera is in certain cases
communicable by human intercourse, seems unavoid-
able. It is affirmed, in general terms, that, in the coun-
try districts, in nine cases out of ten, the first victims
had had intercourse with persons labouring under the
disease, either by touch or by breathing the same air.
At the Riviere de Rempart, according to Dr Gouly, it
was a Creole woman who first introduced the disease.
At Flacq, according to Dr Grivot, it was a child just
arrived from Port Louis. At Grand Port, it was a
coachman who had driven some person from Port Louis.
At the Savanne, it was a young girl who left Port
Louis on the 28th of May, and was attacked on the
29th. On the 1st of June, cholera broke out through-
out the whole district. At Plaines Wilhelmes, the dis-
ease was introduced by those who had fled from Port
Louis, and it appears to have been the same in all the
country districts. Country cousins — a class not usually
very popular among the denizens of towns — were never
so much in demand as during the prevalence of cholera.
Wherever a distant relationship could be traced, the
houses of the poor habitans were crowded with fugitives
from Port Louis. One small house at Black River,
containing only one small bed-room, afforded shelter to
sixteen persons, of different sexes, for upwards of a

INFLUENCE OF FEAR 145

month, and, singular to relate, they all escaped. "In
many cases, the outbreak of cholera was owing mainly
or wholly to the influence of fear. The fugitives, with
their imaginations excited by the horrors which they
had witnessed at Port Louis, gave such harrowing de-
tails of the ravages of the fearful scourge, that many, on
listening to them, were seized at once with all the pre-
liminary symptoms, and in many cases cut off. A
singular instance of this occurred within the experience
of the writer of these pages. A female servant, a
Creole, in his employment, was residing with his family
in one of the country districts near Port Louis about
the beginning of June. She received a visit one day
from her father, a carpenter belonging to Port Louis.
His imagination had been strongly excited by the num-
ber of funerals which he had witnessed in passing
through Moka Street, and he had had recourse to colo-
nial rum as a means of warding off his terrors. The
girl was perfectly well at nine o'clock in the evening,
though rather frightened by the stories related by her
father. The next morning she did not appear at the
usual hour. On an entrance into the cottage which
she occupied being effected, she and her father were
found both stretched on the floor, with their limbs con-
torted vdth the horrible cramp which marks one of the
last stages of cholera. The father was speechless and
dying, and the poor girl could only look up with an
expression of agony and terror that can never be for-
gotten, and feebly mutter, '' Frottez.'' No medical man
could be obtained. She was placed in a carriage in

K

146 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

order to be conveyed to the hospital. The coachman,
panic-struck, overturned the carriage at a few hundred
yards from the house, and she was precipitated into the
road. This accident produced a momentary reaction,
and, for a time, when conveyed to town and subjected
to proper medical treatment, she gave fair hopes of re-
covery. This hope, however, was not realised. She
soon followed her father to the grave. This incident
would, no doubt, be regarded by the contagionists as
favourable to their theory ; but the attack seems rather
to have been the result of excessive fear, excited by the
detail of the ravages committed by the pestilence in
Port Louis. The mind exercises a powerful influence
in such cases, and the best preventive against cholera
is a calm, self-possessed spirit, in utrumque paratus.
There are other cases, however, reported by respectable
medical men, where the conclusion that cholera is in
certain cases contagious seems inevitable. A few of
these may be mentioned. A Mr Dubois was attacked
with cholera. His servant remained with him, and spent
two days and a night in rubbing him. After his death,
the servant himself was attacked with cholera. His
wife waited upon him, and died on the second day; and
his mother-in-law, who did not live in the same house,
having come to wait upon them during their illness,
was herself attacked, and speedily succumbed. On the
property Hochet, upon the road to Long Mountain,
there were no cases of cholera for several days. They
were in the habit of sending to town daily for such pro-
visions as they required. A man on his return from

IS CHOLERA CONTAGIOUS? 147

town was seized with cholera, and on this small pro-
perty, occupied by about twenty persons, fifteen died
in succession. The coachman of Mr D'Epinay, named
Frank, an Englishman, on his arrival from town, found

Ibis child ill ; he remained to nurse it, and after wit-
nessing the death of his wife and his three children, he
himself was attacked, and died after a day's illness. It
is worthy of remark, that everything on this establish-
ment was in a state of perfect cleanliness, and that no
cases of cholera occurred in the neighbouring houses,
where there had been no communication with the town.
A young girl went to count the funerals in Moka Street,
which leads to the Cemetery; on her return, she was
seized with cholera. The whole population of that
street were attacked, one after another, and scarcely
one escaped. There was constant communication be-
tween the inhabitants of the different houses, who, as
often happens in Port Louis, were all more or less re-
lated to each other. There are several brothers at Port
Louis of the name of Pitcheu, all living with their
families in different streets of the town. One of the
brothers was attacked. The different families came to
visit him. Some days after there were in every one of
these families, and in their different houses, persons
attacked with cholera. These cases are extracted from
the report of Dr Colin, an intelligent young physician
of Port Louis, whose good faith is beyond all suspicion.
A Dr Perrot, residinof at Plaines Wilhelmes, declares
that he did not meet with a sinsjle case of cholera where
communication with infected places could not be traced,

1 48 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

and states as a singular fact, that cholera manifested
itself at Plaines Wilhelmes only when the wind was
blowing from the town in the direction of that quarter,
and especially in the houses of persons who had been
in Port Louis. Numerous facts of the same character,
all tending to establish the contagiousness of cholera,
might be quoted from the reports of the other medical
men in Mauritius, all of whom, with the exception of
two, are contagionists ; but, as they do not present any
new or interesting features, it is unnecessary to dwell
upon them.

In November, cholera broke out at Flacq. The cir-
cumstances connected with its appearance in that
district are curious, and seem to prove beyond a doubt
what few in Mauritius would now deny — that cholera
is infectious, and that places infected may retain the
seeds of infection for a considerable period after the
disease has disappeared from the locality. On the
property Clemencia, at Flacq, there was a shop, where
two persons had died during the time of the first epi-
demic. Since that time the shop had remained shut.
On the 13th of November, a woman of the name of
Alfred, the sister-in-law of the proprietor of the shop,
took it into her head to look whether a shawl which
she had left in the shop was still there. She caused a
shutter to be opened, and put only her head inside.
She was repelled by the offensive odour exhaled from
the room, and immediately withdrew. The same night
she was taken ill, and next day she died. Her adopted

CREOLE SYSTEM OF LAISSEZ ALLER. 1 49

child, two years of age, was attacked the same day, and
died after an illness of twenty-four hours. From her
house the epidemic spread in a gradually increasing
circle, and no less than seventy-eight cases of cholera
presented themselves, after it had ceased for more than
three months in every other district of the island,
with the exception of the solitary case of the family
Ackroyd.

It might have been expected that the Mauritians, smart-
ing imder the remembrance of this severe visitation, and
anxious to avoid its recmTence, would have proceeded
to cover their open drains, to clean their streets, to
ventilate their houses, and to adopt those other sanitary
measures which tend to check, if not to avert the
ravages of cholera. The Town Council and the press
were too busily engaged in delivering philippics
against the local Government to occupy themselves
with such insignificant matters. The system of laissez
aUer is so innate to the Creole character, that all the
lessons of their recent sad experience were speedily
forgotten, and they looked to the strict enforcement of
the quarantine laws as the only condition necessary to
the enjoyment of perfect immunity from another out-
break of cholera. Matters continued in this state of
false security till the month of January 1856, when
two vessels, the Hyderee and Fktteh Moharruch, ar-
rived at Port Louis, with a cargo ^f Coolie labourers.
Neither of these vessels had a clean bill of health, and
the rumour spread rapidly through the town that

] 50 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

cholera was on board. There is no evidence that such
was the case at the moment of their arrival. It may
be easily conceived, that when several hundred Indians
are crowded into a ship, with no other doctor on board
than that greatest of all charlatans, a native practitioner,
and without sufficient provision for the enforcement of
cleanliness, or the cooking of their rice, which, during
a gale, they are sometimes obliged to eat raw or to
starve, cases of dysentery and severe diarrhoea will
occur. When the patients are landed at once, and
subjected to proper treatment, these diseases speedily
disappear, and the Coolie is restored to his former
vigour. Unfortunately for the poor Coolies on board
these ships, Port Louis was seized with a cholera panic,
a species of insanity that may now be regarded as
endemic. The Government, yielding to the popular
clamour and the threats of the press, ordered the 656
Coolies to be disembarked on Flat and Gabriel Islands,
two miserable rocks, a few miles from Port Louis,
where no sufficient provision had been made for afford-
ing them shelter and food. The condition of these
miserable wretches was truly deplorable. The quaran-
tine laws, strictly enforced, forbade them to land — the
open sea and the bare rocks offered them only a grave.
In the course of a short time the bones of two hundred
Coolies were bleaching on these barren rocks, the victims
of Creole cowardice and Government mismanagement.
This fearful mortality created little sensation among the
Creoles. Cholera had broken out in Port Louis, and
they had no sympathy for any suffering save their

CALUMNIES AGAINST THE GOVERNOR. 151

own. The mortality, though considerable, was not so
great as in 1854 In the case of any public disaster
the Creoles must always have a victim, and on this
occasion they selected the Governor. He was repre-
sented as gloating over the sufferings of his subjects,
like the Eoman Emperor of old, and indulging in
every kind of festivity, while Port Louis was clad in
sackcloth and ashes.* Comparisons were drawn between
his conduct, in shutting himself up at Reduit, and that
of the Governor of Malta, who during the prevalence
of cholera visited the public hospitals, and did every
thing in his power to relieve the suffering, and to arrest
the progress of the malady. The Genius of cholera was
introduced, and represented as writing upon the wall
of the Governor's banqueting hall its " Mene, Tekel,"
like the fingers of a man's hand at Belshazzar's feast.
The guardian angel of Mauritius covered her face, and
wept over her slaughtered children in the " leaders" of
the local press ; but there was neither man nor angel
to lament the miserable Coolies, perishing by scores on
Flat and Gabriel Islands. While cholera still existed
in Port Louis, though its ravages were less intense,
another Coolie ship, the Shah Jehan, arrived in the
harbour. Next morning the corners of the principal
streets and thoroughfares were covered with placards,
announcing that there was cholera on board the Shah
Jehan, and calling upon the people to assemble at
Government House. Excited groups might be seen

* It is almost needless to say that there was do truth in these
charges.

152 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

reading these placards with pale faces, or discussing
with violent gesticulations the propriety of some public
demonstration against the Government. Though the
placards were spread over the whole town, such was
the remissness of the police and civil authorities that
no measures were adopted for the protection of Go-
vernment House, which was invaded towards noon by
a mob, which demanded to see the Governor. Several
orators mounted temporary rostrums, and delivered
exciting addresses, calling upon their hearers, if their
wives and children were dear to them, to insist upon the
Shah Jehan being sent off to sea again. The Governor
appeared upon the balcony, but his presence only in-
creased the uproar. In a moment of inadvertence, he
happened to turn his back upon the assembly, and. the
dignity of King Mob was very much hurt in conse-
quence. An amusing illustration of the Creole cha-
racter may be found in the fact, that when the Governor's
conduct was criticised afterwards by the press, much
more blame was attached to his having turned his back
upon the mob, than to his having allowed the Shah
Jehan to enter the harbour. It was proposed that the
guns of the citadel should be turned against the offend-
ing vessel, and the Governor, yielding to the popular
clamour, was induced to order her into quarantine. The
ravages of cholera among the Coolies on board, who
were worn out by the sea voyage, and destitute of all
the care and attention which their case required, were
very great. Mauritius, however, is so isolated, and so

TB.-E FRIEND OF INDIA, 153

little within the reach of public opinion at home, that
these cases, bad as they were, might have led to no
amelioration of the sanitary arrangements connected
with the reception of Goolies arriving in the colony, had
there not been on the spot an Indian official interested
in the welfare of the Coolies, who, on his return to
•India, reported the case to the Government. The fol-
lowing article appeared in the Friend of India of the
7th of August 1856:—

"We recently warned all Indian readers, in search
of health or anxious for leisure, to avoid a visit
to the Mauritius. . Port Louis, it is true, is easy of
access. It is within the Indian limits, to the great at-
traction of all who adhere to the old rules of military
leave. The island itself is beautiful enough to allure
even those who have seen Sicily, and the planters are
said to be hospitable in the extreme, but the curse of
ignorance is over all. The islanders are determined, in
spite of all medical evidence and all experiments of
every Indian visitor, and everybody else with a brain, to
believe that cholera is contagious. The unhappy tra-
veller, therefore, is subjected to all the horrors of a worse
than Russian quarantine. If a Coolie or Lascar on
board has an attack of diarrhoea, if a man of the crew
becomes delirious with drink, it is all over with the
voyager. The island goes mad. Port Louis is in an
uproar. The Municipality pass treasonable resolutions.
The mob surrounds the Governor's house. The unlucky
officials, suspected because they are possessed of brains.

154 . CREOLES AND COOLIES.

are spurred and harassed into injustice, and the unhappy
vessel is placed for weeks in a quarantine, which too
often produces the evil the islanders are striving to
avoid. If this were all, we should confine ourselves to
a warning to intending tourists. It is doubtless dis-
agreeable and even dangerous to be detained for weeks
on a barren rock, fed with unwholesome food, and
drenched with fetid water. Those Europeans, however,
who proceed there, knowing these facts, have only
themselves to blame, and are probably compelled by
reasons which justify them in braving even Mauritius
hospitality. The case is difi"erent as regards the
Coolies. They are sent thither under official protection,
under an implied guarantee that their lives shall not
be sacrified to the ignorant selfishness of a Creole mob.
We are assured in the most positive manner, that
under existing regulations they are sacrificed — we had
almost written murdered — in scores at a. time. In Jan-
uary of this year, the Hyderee and Futteh Mobarruch
arrived in Port Louis with a cargo of Coolies. There
were a few cases of severe diarrhoea on board, such as
will occur among all large assemblages of natives.
They were not, however, cases of cholera. The rumour,
however, was sufficient. Port Louis displayed the usual
symptoms of incipient insanity, and the vessels were
ordered off" to Flat or Gabriel Islands. These are two
rocks in the midst of the sea, about ten miles from the
town. The Coolies, 656 in number, worn out with
sea-sickness, want of exercise, and all the d^sagr^mens
incidental to a sea voyage, were turned out upon the

ARRIVAL OF THE SHAH JEHAN. 155

islets. Nothing was given them for shelter, no wood,
no leaves, no grass, not even mud for building huts.
The food was insufficient, the water was fetid, the ex-
posure was such as even natives are unable to endure,
Cholera, fever, and acute dysentery were raging among
them all at once, and, as we are positively assured, two
hundred men perished on the rock.

" At the same time cholera broke out in Port Louis.
The contagion had, of course, spread from Gabriel
Island, but as this is ten miles off, and there had been
no communication, the wiseacres seemed almost puzzled.
At last it was discovered that the steamer Yictorm
had carried provisions there, that one man had landed,
and that this man had died of cholera. What more
was required? True, the man had been sufFering for
weeks. True, the body had been thrown into the sea,
miles away from Port Louis, and none of the people on
board caught the disease. No evidence, however clear,
weighs with fanatics ; the islanders were confirmed in
their belief, and the deaths of the unfortunate Beingalees
were condoned. This, however, is not alL Men are
always cruel when inspired by selfishness and fear;
but the Mauritians went a step further. The cholera
was raging in the island when the Shoh Jehan arrived.
Even if the disease had been raging on board, and if
the theory of contagion had been as true as it is absurd,
there was no reason for delay. The disease could not
be increased by the poor Coolies. There was no proof
apparently that the cholera was on board, and the im-
migrants ran far more risk than their inhospitable

156 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

employers. No matter they were natives imported
under every assurance of kindness and protection.
Port Louis rose. The Governor was coerced into an
order sending the vessel into quarantine, and there it
remained till weeks had become months. . Cholera of
course broke out. The Coolies died in scores, while
the Creoles raved on about the danojer of contagion,
and refused to make the most ordinary efforts for sani-
tary reform. The Municipality sits and accuses the
Governor ; the planters sit and lecture the Governor ;
the people gesticulate and threaten the Governor ; and,
meanwhile, in that town of close streets, there is not
one water-closet or one covered drain. The matter de-
serves, and will, we hope, receive the most serious atten-
tion of the Government of India. The follies of the
Mauritians are nothing to any of us. They may believe
they are hospitable, or that the sun goes round the
earth, or that Port Louis is an enlightened city, or any
other absurdity they please. But even ignorance and
credulity are not excuses for the wholesale sacrifice of
our fellow-subjects. This particular folly affects the
character for good faith of the Government of India.
The Coolies are attracted to the Mauritius by an official
pledge that their engagements shall be kept ; that they
shall be fairly treated and protected in the enjoyment
of their rights. That pledge has been broken in a
manner as silly as inhuman, and it is to the Govern-
ment of India alone that the survivors look for redress.
The remedy is in its own hands. Without these
Coolies, whom they thus leave to die, the Mauritians

SUSPENSION OF COOLIE EMIGEATION. 157

would be the happy possessors of a barren rock. We
cannot appeal to their humanity, but we may to their
thirst for dollars. Let the Government suspend the
law permitting Coolies to be despatched to the Mauri-
tius, until the planters have invented some reasonable
system which shall at least ensure to its subjects
some decent food, water not too brackish to drink, and
some covering, if it be only as much as we should give
to bullocks. Six months' suspension would probably
teach the Creoles, that even if quarantine be enforced
to conciliate their prejudices, it need not necessarily
involve a massacre.''

The indignation excited by this article in Mauritius
may be easily conceived. The planters, instead of try-
ing to disprove the facts which it contained, or to
remedy the evil to which it pointed, indulged in scur-
rilous abuse of the writer, and imputed to him every
motive save the true one— a desire to see justice done,
and the good faith of the Government of India vindi-
cated. The Governor of Mauritius might be coerced
by the clamour of a Creole mob ; the Government of
India was beyond their reach. The Supreme Council
passed an ordinance suspending the importation of
Coolie emigrants to Mauritius until the quarantine
regulations should be placed on a more satisfactory
footing, and accommodation provided for those who,
from having a foul bill of health, might be prevented
from landing. The arrival of this intelligence in a
colony which owes all its prosperity to Coolie labour,
caused nearly as great a panic as the dread of cholera.

158 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

The Chamber of Agriculture proposed to send one of
its members to Calcutta to intercede with the Govern-
ment of India, but this proposal was never carried into
effect. With such glaring facts against them, the
astutest of their number would have found it rather
difficult to make the worse appear the better cause.
The temporary suspension of Coolie emigration has
now been removed. Accommodation of such a nature
as to prevent the possibility of the recurrence of simi-
lar disasters, has been provided for immigrants placed
in temporary quarantine ; but no regulations, however
strictly enforced, will ever be sufficient to ward off
cholera from this colony. If the planters will have
Coolies from India, they must be prepared to incur the
risk of cholera ; if they will escape that risk, they must
be prepared to make sugar without Coolie labour. It
is a question of the relative value of life and sugar, and
one of the two alternatives seems inevitable. But, in
truth, they have less to dread from the Coolies im-
ported from India, than from the Creoles and Coolies
crowded too-ether in the narrow streets and festerino:
lanes of Port Louis, in houses that are ill ventilated,
and filled with the miasma of the reeking drains in
their neighbourhood. It has become the fashion of
late years to ascribe all the disease in the colony to the
influx of Coolie immigrants ; and no doubt every addi-
tion to the population, from whatever quarter, must
tend to increase the generating causes of disease, so
long as the present population is crowded together in
houses that were barely sufficient for the accommoda-

BOMBAY FEVER. 159

tion of the inhabitants ten years ago. The erection of
well-ventilated houses, furnished with the conveniences
of civilised life, the use of healthy and nutritive food,
cleanliness of person, the suppression of the sale of
" poison '' under the name of arrack, and the covering
of the open drains, will do more to ward off cholera
than all the quarantine regulations that the ingenuity
or the terror of man can ever devise.

After cholera, the disease which has committed the
greatest ravages in the colony is small-pox. The
Creoles have a traditionary dread of this malady, owing
to the population having been decimated by an out-
break which occasioned a fearful mortality among the
slaves in 1782. Vaccination was entirely neglected,
until the Government lately directed their attention to
the subject, and appointed an officer to perform the
operation on the poorer classes gratuitously. There is
still a strong prejudice against it among the blacks ;
and when the colony was visited with this disease in
1856, they were the greatest sufferers.

While this colony is exempt from the yellow fever of
the West Indian islands, there is a species .of typhoid
fever which prevails more or less throughout the whole
year, in those quarters of Port Louis that are inhabited
by the lower classes. It is supposed to be of Indian
origin, and is usually known as the Bombay fever. It
is said to have been unknown till the introduction of
"the Coolie immigrants; but its origin ought to be re-
ferred to local causes — to an overcrowded population,
residing in unhealthy localities, and breathing a pol-

160 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

luted atmosphere, and to the improper nature of the
food used by a large portion of the inhabitants. I
have not met with a single case of Bombay fever among
the English residents who live in the country or the
better parts of the town ; but the mortality caused by
it among the Creoles and the Coolies at certain seasons
is very great. Owing to the nature of the food and the
deteriorating influences of a tropical climate, they have
not the same stamina as the English, and succumb be-
neath diseases from which the latter generally escape.

The most fearful and loathsome of all the diseases
prevalent among the Creoles is leprosy. Its origin is
ascribed to different causes — to the constant intennar-
riage of the same families, to the excessive use of lard
in cooking, and to the influence of climate. The taint
of leprosy is as much dreaded as the taint of colour.
The families subject to this disease are known, and in-
termarriage with them carefully avoided. A hospital
has been provided in one of the dependencies of Mau-
ritius for the reception of those labouring under the
more violent forms of the disease.

Consumption is of frequent occurrence, especially
among the Coolies. Their exposure in the open air,
without sufiicient clothing, and the diff*erence between
tlie temperature of India and that of Mauritius, may
have some influence in producing this eflect. No
one acquainted with Mauritius could ever place it on
the same footing as Madeira, or recommend it as a
sanatarium for those labouring under pulmonary com-
plaints. Some years ago, thirty soldiers, belonging to

CLARET AND WATER 161

other regiments, and labouring under consumption,
were drafted into a regiment under orders for Mauri-
tius. This was done under the erroneous impression
that the climate of Mauritius was favourable to the
recovery of consumptive patients. All of these men
died within a comparatively short period after their
arrival. Those also who have a hereditary tendency to
gout, would do well to avoid a permanent residence in
this colony. Paralytic disorders and severe rheuma-
tism are also common.

Dysentery and liver complaint are the two diseases
most fatal to the British soldiers. The reckless use of
the arrack sold in the public canteens predisposes
them to these diseases ; and yet, from the War Office
returns, it appears that the mortality among the
soldiers stationed here is not so great as in other parts
of the world, usually esteemed more healthy. Temper-
ance, sea-bathing, and an umbrella are the best preven-
tives against these diseases. Old residenters believe
the use of pure water to be highly dangerous, and
almost certain to superinduce dysentery. Claret and
water is thought to be the safest beverage. The pre-
judice against water appears to have been handed down
from the days of the early colonists, who relate that it
gave the cramp to young ducks, and the bloody flux
to those who drank it. It is to be observed, however,
that this effect was only produced by water shaded by
wood from the influence of the sun, while the prejudice
of the old residenters extends to water of all kinds,
whether shaded by the sun or otherwise.

L

leJ^^^A. '^q/c^ '

162 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

The climate of Mauritius has either deteriorated of
late years, or has been represented in too favourable
a light by former travellers. The island has been de-
scribed as a little paradise, enjoying a delicious climate,
and immunity from all those diseases that are peculiar
to the tropics. Those, however, who have lived in it
for years have been led to form a different opinion. If
drunken, dishonest servants, extravagant charges for
inferior articles, scurrilous attacks on private character
by a licentious press, the consciousness of being cheated
at all hands without any means of redress, and the
enervating influences of a climate that soon wears out
the strongest constitution and the most vigorous mind,
constitute a paradise, Mauritius has undoubted claims
to that character. There is no disease peculiar to the
tropics that may not be found there, with the single
exception of yellow fever. The wearing influences of
the climate arise, not only from the almost insupport-
able heat of the sun during two-thirds of the year, but
also from the softness of the air, which deprives the
body of all strength, and the mind of all elasticity, and
superinduces a general listlessness and impassibility of
character, which never fail to strike a stranger on his
first arrival. Life is so monotonous, so destitute of all
exciting impressions and animating sensations, so un-
marked by any of those events that, in other countries,
tend to divert the thoughts, and to prevent the mind
from morbidly preying upon itself, that many sink into
a half-unconscious state of existence, often more de-
structive to health than an attack of disease. Day after

ENNUI AND ITS EFFECTS. 163

day, the bright burning sun rises at the same hour,
pursues the same course, and sinks into the same place
of rest. The eternal sunshine becomes tiresome, and
the European, at least, longs for the climate of Europe,
with its varying seasons and its agreeable changes. The
island is so limited in extent, that one has the feeling
of being compressed within too narrow space, and longs
for those vast continents where the mind can expatiate,
without being hemmed in by the ocean, and where one
can travel for successive weeks, without arriving at
what appears to be the end of the world. Life in the
Mauritius resembles, in a great measure, solitary im-
prisonment in a stifling atmosphere, and produces much
the same effect upon the mind and the body. Those
who become once habituated to it may extend their
dreary monotonous lives to the usual span of mortal
existence, but many die of mere mental inanition, or
have recourse to dissipation, as a means of temporary
escape from that ennui that weighs upon their spirits.
The slaves seem to have participated largely in this
feeling, and to have had recourse to strange means in
order to escape from it. They often fled to the moun-
tains, in order to escape from the monotonous life of
the plantation. Sometimes they committed crimes en-
tailing capital punishment, from the same motive, deem-
ing death itself preferable to the life which they led.
Cases of suicide, arising from the same cause, were not
uncommon ; and I have known instances of soldiers
committing breaches of military discipline, for which
they could assign no motive, save the desire to vary,

y

164 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

even by punishment, the otherwise dull tenor of their
monotonous existence. The only effective cure for this
disease is change of scenery; and none who wish to
enjoy the greatest of aU earthly blessings, the mens
Sana in corpore sano, should remain in Mauritius more
than iive years at a time. The monotony of a voyage
of three months at sea, is lively when compared with
the gayest season in the island of canes and hurricanes.

ADVANTAGES OF FREE LABOUK. 165

CHAPTER V.

Sugar Exported from Mauritius in 1835 and 1856— Cause of this In-
crease— Introduction of Coolie Immigrants from India — Mode of
Engaging them — Their Pay, Rations, and Treatment — Dress —
Diseases — Domestic Servants — Language — Religion — The Yamseh
— Causes of Crime — Want of Religious Instruction — Disproportioa
between the Sexes — Coolies Ready to Receive Christianity — Mauri-
tius as a Missionary Field — First Effort Made to Evangelise the
Immigrants — Report to Madras Bible Society — The Indian and
African Character Contrasted.

The productive power of Mauritius was not known till
after the abolition of slavery. Whatever effect that
measure may have produced in other colonies, in Mau-
ritius it cannot be regarded as otherwise than a positive
benefit. It introduced a new system of culture, and a
new class of labourers. The quantity of sugar exported
from Mauritius at the present day, v^hen compared with
that produced before the emancipation of the slaves,
affords the most convincing proof that free labour,
when attainable, is far more productive than slave
labour. In 1835, the quantity of sugar exported from
Mauritius, amounted to 648,545 quintals (100 lbs.
French). In 1845, it amounted to 963,000 quintals.
M'CuUoch stated some years before that it had reached
the acme of production, and it is said that Mr Huskisson
predicted that the produce of the colony could never ex-

1G6 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

ceed 8000 tons of sugar. If Mr Huskisson were alive
at the present day, he would be astonished to learn that
25,707 tons of sugar, or more than three times the
quantity which he regarded as the maximum of Mau-
ritius produce, was exported from the colony in 1856.
This increase in the produce of the colony has been
owing exclusively to the introduction of Coolie labourers
from India. No doubt a larger amount of capital has
been embarked in the cultivation of the soil, and im-
proved machinery has been introduced from England and
France, but that has been the consequence of the facility
of obtaining Indian labour, the primary cause of the
island's prosperity at the present day. If Mauritius,
instead of being situated in the Indian Ocean, within a
few weeks' sailing of the great Indian peninsula, teem-
ing with inhabitants, had occupied the same latitude as
the West Indian Islands, instead of having quadrupled
the quantity of sugar produced within a few years
back, it would now have been sunk in the same ruinous
condition as these unfortunate dependencies of the
British crown. The abolition of slavery would have
been its death-blow, and instead of having its sloping
plains and central high lands covered with the rustling
cane, and the natural beauty of its scenery diversified
by bands of busy labourers, and the smoke of working
usines, the whole island might soon have relapsed
into its original state, and if not abandoned, as at a
former period by the Dutch, retained only by the
British for the conveniences which its harbour affords
to their Indian shipping. Its nearness to the Indian

INDIAN LABOUEEES. 167

peninsula, and the facility of procuring Indian labour,
saved it from this fate.

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the effects which the
emancipation of the slaves produced upon the labour
market. These effects were the same as in the West
Indian Islands, with this difference that the emancipated
slaves having been formerly treated with greater harsh-
ness than those in the West Indies, by their French
masters, were, on that account, the more averse to labour-
ing in their fields. They preferred a life of indolent
ease, or occupied themselves in cultivating small patches
of land, which, owing to the kindliness of the soil, were
sufficient for their subsistence. If they did labour at
times on the cane -fields, it was only to procure a little
money to satisfy their wants, or to gratify their vanity.
When their object was attained, they returned to that
state of indolent, ambitionless existence, which seems
to be the normal condition of the African race.

To escape from this unenviable position, the planters,
with the assistance and sanction of the local Govern-
ment, had recourse to the Indian peninsula. In the in-
terior of India, there are millions of natives condemned
to constant toil, and receiving for their labour the lowest
remuneration necessary for subsistence. Acquainted
with the value of money, and ambitious to amass suf-
ficient wealth to raise them to the envied position of
land-proprietors in their native villages — possessed of
bone and muscle, fitting them for the most arduous
labour — and anxious to obtain a higher remuneration
than the native labour market offered, the hill Coolies

168 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

of India were as ready to embark, as the planters of
Mauritius to welcome them to their shores.

To prevent injustice and disorder, the local Govern-
ment, instead of allowing the planters to supply them-
selves with labourers from India without control, wisely
took the matter in hand, and introduced salutary
arrangements regulating the introduction of Coolie
immigrants. If the labour market in India had been
left open to free trade, and the planters of Mauritius
been allowed to introduce as many labourers as they
chose, the result would have been that the island would
have been crowded with Coolies. Erom the surplus of
labour in the market, these men would have been
obliged to labour at a low rate of wages, in a colony
where all the necessaries of life are extremely dear.
Without the protection of Government also, there would
have been a danger of these men being treated with in-
justice, and reduced even to a state of absolute slavery,
when employed by unprincipled masters.

To prevent the island from being overcrowded with
Coolies, the Government took care that the annual im-
portation should be regulated according to the real
wants of the colony. An estimate was made before-
hand of the number of Coolies that would be required
for the ensuing year, and care taken that the labourers
introduced should not exceed that number. To pre-
vent anything like a system of kidnapping (such as is
largely practised in the neighbouring island of Bourbon)*

* The Coolies of India being now on their guard, the authorities of
Bourbon have had recourse to the Kingsmills' Islands to supply the
deficiency in the labour mai'ket.

TREATMENT ON BOARD SHIP. 169

from springing up, Government agents were appointed
in the chief towns of the three Indian Presidencies.
These agents explain to intending emigrants the terms
of their engagement, procure ships for their conveyance,
and superintend their embarkation. The number of
the Indians embarked is proportioned to the tonnage
of the vessel. Two children count for one full-grown
man. When the stranger reads that the Ackbar has
arrived at Mauritius with 277i Coolies, he must not
imagine that any unfortunate Goolab or Ramosamy has
left the half of his body behind him. There is an odd
child on board, that is all.

The comfort of the Coolies on board ship depends
very much on the kindness and conscientiousness of the
captain, in attending to their comforts, and taking care
that the part of the ship occupied by them is kept clean
and well ventilated. Government should make it im-
perative that a properly qualified medical man should
accompany every cargo of Coolies. It is a mere mockery
to secure the services of a native practitioner. When
three hundred Coolies are crowded on board a ship,
from their habits, diseases will naturally spring up among
them ; and if there be no medical man on board, there
must be a frequent and heavy sacrifice of human life.
Diseases that might be easily checked at first, prove
fatal through neglect. Cases of cholera will at times
occur. A medical man may not be able to cure these
cases, but he may do much in arresting the progress of
the disease among the others, and in preventing that
panic the spread of which kills more than the disease
itself.

] 70 CEEOLES AND COOLIES. -

When the Coolie vessel arrives at the Mauritius, and
shews a satisfactory bill of health, the Government pro-
tector, or his representative, goes on board, and conducts
the immigrants to the Bagne, a large building situated
near the shore, and used as a depot for their reception.
If the vessel cannot shew a clean bill of health, or if a
cholera panic be prevalent at -Port Louis, the Coolies
are placed in quarantine. The horrors of such a posi-
tion are described in another part of this work. It is
but justice, however, to mention, that since the suspen-
sion of Coolie emigration by the Indian Government in
1856, the accommodation for the Coolies placed in tem-
porary quarantine has been very much improved, so as
to prevent a repetition of the dreadful scenes exhibited
on Flat and Gabriel Islands during tjie previous part
of the same year. It is not a pleasant sight to witness
the disembarkation of some three hundred Coolies after
a voyage of three weeks. They have not been able on
board ship to perform their usual ablutions, or to wash
their scanty supply of clothing. They have, all been
labouring more or less under sea-sickness, and have not
been able to have their food properly cooked at sea.
The spectator cannot fail to be struck with their mise-
rable, squalid, emaciated appearance, and their general
resemblance, save in the matter of complexion and
clothing, to those wretched beings whom the Irish
steamers land on the wharfs of Liverpool and Glasgow.
There is in their appearance an air of general helpless-
ness, such as shews the wisdom of the Government in
watching over their interests. The Mauritius planters

BEEOEE AND AFTER THE VOYAGE. 171

often point with much complacency to the contrast be-
tween the miserable specimens of humanity landed on
their shores from India, and the plump, healthy, mus-
cular men embarking for the same country at the end
of three years, as a proof of the excellent treatment
which the latter have received at their hands during the
period of their engagement. This contrast can scarcely
be regarded as a fair test of the improvement effected
in the Coolie's physical condition during his residence
in Mauritius. A Frenchman landing at Folkestone,
after crossing the Channel, is not a fair specimen of his
race. An Englishman would scarcely be justified in
judging of the improving effect which a few weeks' re-
sidence in England has produced on his French neigh-
bour, by the contrast between the seedy, sickly, un-
wholesome appearance which he presents at Folkestone,
and the jaunty, spruce, self-satisfied air with which he
steps on board the steamer to return to his own coun-
try. When he lands at Boulogne, he looks much the
same man as when he landed at Folkestone, equally an
object of commiseration, from his utterly woe-begone
appearance. It is the same with the Indian when he
returns to his native shores ; he looks to the full as
squalid and miserable as when he landed in Mauritius.
We refer merely to his personal appearance, and to the
insufficiency of the contrast between his appearance at
landing and re-embarking, as a test to judge of the
physical effect produced upon him by his residence in
the colony. There can be no doubt but that mentally
he is a different man. His intellect has been sharpened.

172 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

and his mind divested of many foolish prejudices,
through intercourse with others, and the dissolution of
those ties which, in his native land, fettered all freedom
of thought, and made him a mere working machine.
The greatest advantage, however, which he has reaped,
is the feeling of self-respect. He has worked like a
man, and earned a fair return for his labour. He feels
that he occupies a place in the social system, and lays
aside, in his intercourse with Europeans, those cring-
ing, fawning, servile manners, so characteristic of his
countrymen in India.

The immigrants are conducted to the depot, where
they remain two days, during which they are in-
structed in reference to the labour they have to per-
form, and the wages to which they are entitled.
If there happens to be a scarcity of labourers at the
moment, or if the sugar crop is nearly ready, the Bagne
is surrounded during these two days with eager plan-
ters, anxious to secure for themselves the newly-arrived
immigrants, and not over-scrupulous about the means
they employ to gain this end. As the Coolie is ignorant
of French, and the French planter equally ignorant of
the different lang-uages of India, intercourse between
them is conducted through the medium of a class of
natives known as sirdars. The services of one of these
men are secured by the planter, just in the same way
as the services of a barrister are secured by his client.
A retaining fee is paid, and the eloquence of the sirdar
is employed in his behalf. The scene presented in the
large room of the Bagne during these two days affords a

SCENE AT THE BAGNE. 173

subject worthy of the pencil of Hogarth. It is filled,
with Coolies. Some of them are standing in groups,
and listening to the praises bestowed by the sirdars on
their employers. Of course, they are represented as
approaching almost to perfection, and their plantations
described as a sort of paradises. If they engage with
them, they will receive the highest wages for the small-
est amount of labour. If they engage with any one
else, they will have short rations, and their wages cut
down to the half of the amount promised. Others of
the Coolies are prostrate on the floor, as yet too imper-
fectly recovered from sea-sickness to listen to the elo-
quence of the sirdars, or to care much what may be
their future fate. In the background may be seen the
planters, hardy, bronzed, bearded men, watching the
effect of the sirdars' eloquence upon their hearers, and
imperfectly concealing their anxiety about the result.

The sirdars are not the only class employed to en-
gage the Coolie labourers. There are other parties con-
nected with the Bagne, who, from having acquired the
native languages, have considerable influence among
them. One of these, a clerk with a salary of £7 a
month, is said to have managed matters so well, that
at the end of a few years he was enabled to retire with
a comfortable little independence of about c^'l 2,000,
received from the planters and others, for services ren-
dered. Loose as the system of government at Mauri-
tius is, the corruption that had crept into this depart-
ment became at length so glaring, that the matter was
reported to the Home Government. Whether the mea-

174 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

sures adopted in consequence will check the abuse
alluded to, remains to be seen.

The Coolies are engaged for a period of three years.
Several abortive attempts have been made of late years
to have the period of their engagement extended to five
years. The Home Government have most wisely re-
fused to accede to this proposal. If they had done so,
the system of Coolie immigration would soon have de-
generated into a species of slavery. Even under the
present arrangement it requires the strictest vigilance
on the part of the local authorities to enforce the terms
of the engagement. These are, that for a period of three
years the Coolie shall receive wages amounting to seven
rupees per month, with fifty pounds of rice, four pounds
of dholl — a kind of pulse — four pounds of salt fish, and
one pound of salt, as rations. If these terms were
strictly observed, the condition of the Coolie in Mauri-
tius would be enviable, when compared with that which
he occupied in his own country. If his employer is an
honest man, and pays him his wages regularly, he has
no difficulty in saving three or four rupees a-montli,
which he can place in the savings' bank, where he will
receive five per cent, interest for it. Many of the
Coolies, having no faith in this institution, prefer to
bury their money in the ground, where it is sometimes
discovered and carried off" by their companions. Much
of the silver coin circulating in the colony is of a dingy
dark colour, in consequence of having been buried in
the ground by the Coolies. There can be no doubt but
that, under the present system, with all the vigilance

CO UPER LES GA GES. ] 75

that the local authorities employ, there are frequent
cases of injustice in the treatment of the Coolies. If a
labourer happens to be one day absent from his work,
his employer is entitled to exact two days' labour in
return, or to cut off the price of two days' labour from
his monthly wages. It might be easily shewn that this
power is liable to gross abuse when exercised by an un-
principled employer, whose interest it may be at times
to provoke his labourers to desert his service. When
he does not require the labour of all his Coolies, which
happens at certain seasons, he may treat some of them
in such a way as to lead them to desert, and thus he
gains a double advantage — he escapes from the neces-
sity of nourishing them during their absence, and is
entitled to cut off two days' wages for every day they
have been absent when they return. The system of
cutting the wages (couper les gages) is not confined to
mere absence. It extends to all possible offences, real
or imaginary, and when it is practised by a master in-
genious in discovering faults, the poor labourer, at the
end of the month, often finds himself mulcted of a large
portion of his hard-won earnings. His only mode of
redress is to summon his master before the local
magistrate, where, in consequence of his ignorance of
French, he is placed at a great disadvantage, and except
in very glaring cases, rarely obtains justice.

The Coolie huts on the sugar estates are usually in the
form of a square, built of mud, and thatched with grass.
Formerly little attention was paid to the enforcement of
cleanliness in their camps ; but since the great mortality

176 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

occasioned by cholera in 1 854, more attention has been
paid to this subject, though there is still much room
for improvement. A medical man receives a certain
sum every year to visit the different estates, and those
labouring under complaints requiring constant care are
admitted into the Civil Hospital in Port Louis. There
is a strong antipathy against this institution among the
Creole and Coolie population, and few avail themselves
of the advantages which it offers unless they are com-
pelled by necessity.

Whether Mauritius be favourable or otherwise in
point of health to the Coolie population, is a question
which in the absence of the necessary data cannot be
solved. The large mortality among that class in 1854,
during the prevalence of cholera, affords no criterion.
It would be well if the Indian Government, whose
duty it is to watch over the interests of the Coolie
emigrants, were to demand from the authorities at
Mauritius an exact return of the mortality among that
class since their first introduction into the colony. If
this return specified the diseases of which they died,
much useful information might be acquired, and some
preventive measures might be adopted. The follow-
ing statement of the mortality among the Coolies
in 1845, 1846, and 1847, said to have been drawn
from official documents, appeared in one of the local
papers : —

Men.

Women.

Children.

1845 . .

1283

127

37

1846 . .

. . 797

121

45

1847 .

530

75

13

EFFECTS OF EVAPOEATION. 177

The Coolie population in the colony, at the close of
18^7, is stated in the same paper, to have been 43,865
men, 7355 women, and 3887 children. If these
statistics be at all correct, the inference is clear, either
that Mauritius is highly unfavourable to the Indian
race, or that there are local causes, apart from the in-
fluence of climate, producing a large amount of mortal-
ity. It is to be hoped that the Indian Government
will inquire into this matter. One satisfactory fact is
brought to light by the above statem.ents — viz., that
during these three years, there was an annual increase
in the Coolie population, and an annual decrease in the
mortality amongst them, so that the number of deaths
in ] 847 was less by more than one-half than that of
1845. A large proportion die of fever and of disease
of the lungs, brought on by exposure to the different
changes in the temperature, during the hours of labour.
In the more elevated districts of the colony, the cold
drizzly mornings are sufficiently trying to the immi-
grant newly arrived^ from the burning plains of Hin-
dostan. It might be supposed, from the paucity of
his clothinof, that the rain could do him no harm, and
might, in fact, have the same good effect as a shower-
bath.^ Experience shews that this opinion is a fallacy.
The cold produced by the continued evaporation of the
wet from the naked skin, often affects the lungs, and
brings on fatal disease. A stranger, observing the
half -naked Coolies using umbrellas during the rainy
season, is tempted to think either that this is a work
of supererogation, or that an umbrella is a badge of

M

178 CEEOLES AND COOLIES^

respectability. There is in truth something ludicrous
in the sight of a man protecting his dress, which con-
sists of a piece of linen drawn tightly round the loins,
from the rain with an umbrella. He is not protect-
ing his dress, which would suffer no damage from a
thorough drenching, but his skin, the pores of which
are apt to admit the cold caused by evaporation.

The favourite article of dress used by the Coolie to pro-
tect himself from the cold is a soldier's old coat, the
market price of which is one rupee. The shako is appro-
priated by the ex-apprentices to the adorning of their
woolly heads. It is amusing, when there is a slight fall
in the thermometer, to witness the troops of Coolies in
the streets of Port Louis dressed in this military frippery,
and presentijng an appearance nearly as grotesque as
Falstaff's recruits. Though temperate at their arrival,
they soon learn to have recourse to arrack, as a stimu-
lant, which is freely supplied to them at the grog-shops
established in the neighbourhood of most of the plan-
tations. The planters usually have shops attached to the
estates, similar to those established by the masters in the
mining districts in England, where their labourers are
supplied with the different articles which they require.

In addition to the free Coolie immigrants employed
upon the sugar plantations, there is a large number
of their countrymen condemned to labour in the con-
struction or repair of the public roads in Mauritius,
as a punishment for the crimes of which they have ]
been .found giiilty. Indian convicts were first intro- s
duced into the colony, under the government of Sir (
R T. Farquhar, and were principally Sepoys, who \

INDIAN CONVICTS. 179

had been guilty of military insubordination or political
offences. Most of these men are now dead. A few of
them are still living at Grand Eiver, exempt from all
toil, and supported at the expense of Government. In
physical organisation and general intelligence they are
far superior to their Coolie countrymen. One fine old
man, living in the hut nearest to the sea, might sit as a
model for one of the patriarchs. His Oriental features,
tall, erect figure, flashing eyes, and flowing beard, recall
the pictures of Abraham by the old masters. He
had been a petty officer in a Sepoy regiment, and was
banished to the Mauritius for some political offence.
Most of the public roads in the colony were constructed
by these men, with the assistance of the military. They
worked in chains, under the superintendence of European
inspectors, and were lodged in temporary huts near the
place of labour. They bore their exile with all the indif-
ference of their race. The only crime of which they were
known to be guilty, was the murder of one or two of their
inspectors, by whom they had been treated with cruelty.
The Coolies employed as domestic servants in the town
of Port Louis are different in character from those em-
ployed on the estates. The latter are brought principally
from the interior, while the former are the offscourings of
the large towns, already drunken, dishonest, and demoral-
ised. Some of them are Portuguese half-castes, with all
the vices peculiar to both the races from which they are
sprung. Drunkenness is their besetting sin. Many of
them are cooks, and their intemperate habits often
interfere wijih their artistic duties in the cuisine,
and give rise to ludicrous scenes, rather trying to the

180 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

patience and temper of the lady of the house. We
have seen a large party, invited to dinner, waiting, with
willing but rather abortive attempts at conversation, for
the appearance of the dinner, which did not come. On
inquiry, the cook was found drunk and incapable in
the kitchen, and the guests were obliged to rest content
with such a dinner as the other servants could improvise
on the spur of the moment. The drunkenness and
dishonesty of their domestic servants, is a subject whicl\
rouses even the Creole ladies from their habitual indif-
ference, and makes them in turn eloquent and pathetic
about the inconveniences to which they are exposed.
Many a sigh of regret is uttered for the good old
slavery days, when a lady could sentence a drunken
cook to a few dozen of lashes without the intervention
of a magistrate, and inflict them with her own hand, if
she happened to be of an active disposition, and her
taste lay in that direction. The best way to procure
good servants is to avoid the former denizens of the
large towns of India, and to select them from the pea-
sants of the interior, who are usually sober, honest, and
respectful. To be sure you will have to teach them
everything, but in this world of mingled good and evil
there is no advantage without its inconvenience.

The Coolie servants, on their first arrival, speak only
the languages peculiar to the Presidency to which they
happen to belong. A few that have been instructed in
the missionary institutions, or employed in the families
of British residents in India, speak English, but their
number is insignificant. The facility and readiness

THE INDIANS AS LINGUISTS. ] 81

with which the immigrants master the Creole patois,
within a few weeks after their arrival, argues much in
favour of their natural abilities as linguists, and forms a
striking contrast to the slow and laborious process by
which the less educated British residents, after having
spent many years in the colony, are only able to express
their simplest wants. This remark applies more parti-
cularly to the immigrants resident in Port Louis ; those
employed on the estates, from having less frequent
intercourse with the Creoles, are not so familiar with
their language. Many sturdy Britons are indignant
that these immigrants should be taught Creole instead
of English. In the present circumstances of the colony
this result seems to be unavoidable. While an order
of the Queen in Council, issued in ] 847, made English
the official language in all the proceedings of the
Government and courts of justice, French, or its
patois Creole, still continues to be the language spoken
by the inhabitants. As the Coolie rarely if ever hears
English spoken, he learns Creole, which, though useless
to him in India, is more serviceable in Mauritius than
English would be. The majority of those employed
upon the plantations, having little intercourse with the
Creole population, continue to use their native dialects,
and receive their orders in the same from the overseers.
The Coolies can scarcely be said to have any religion.
The Mohammedan portion of the population have two
mosques, one situated near the Trou Fanfaron in Port
Louis, and the other at Plaine Verte. The first is a
handsome building, in the Moslem style of architecture,

182 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

surmounted by a dome, with the entrance protected by
a strong wooden door, covered with symbolic figures,
cut out with considerable skill. The other has been
erected for the accommodation of the followers of Mo-
hammed residing in Malabar Town. The two buildings
could not contain more than three hundred persons, and
the first is attended almost exclusively by the Arab
merchants. These have almost a monopoly of the rice
trade from India, and the money for the erection of the
mosques was raised by imposing a small tax upon every
bag of rice sold by them in the colony. A small build-
ing at Grand Eiver has been recently converted into a
mosque. It is attended chiefly by those of the old Se-
poy convicts who happen to be followers of the prophet.
The Hindoos have no regular place of worship, and it
may be affirmed, without exaggeration, tliat the great
mass of the 130,000 Indians in the colony are without
religion of any kind.

There is one great religious festival, if it can be so
called, which is observed once every year by the whole
Indian population, and by some of the lower classes
among the Creoles. It is known in Mauritius as the
Yamseh, and corresponds with the feast of the Mohur-
rum in India. Originally it was celebrated only by the
followers of Mohammed, but now it is regarded as a
sort of general festival, in which ail may take part. It is
the rival of the fete de Dieu in extravagance and ab-
surdity, and is generally known as the Indian fete de
Dieu, to distinguish it from that observed by the Church
of Kome. The Mohammedan world, like the Christian,

DEATH OF HOSEIN. 183

is divided into two great sections, each of which claims
an exclusive right to orthodoxy, and brands the other
with the charge of heresy. It is a sort of question, not
of apostolical, but of prophetical succession. Of these
two great divisions of the Mohammedan world, the
Turks and Arabians recognise Abou Bekir, Omar, and
Osman, as the rightful successors of .the prophet; while
the Persian and Indian Mohammedans denounce these
three caliphs as usurpers, and regard Ali, the prophet's
son-in-law and minister, as his religious and political
heir. This dispute gave rise to a sanguinary contest, in
the course of which Hosein, the son of Ali, was attacked
near the city of Kerbela by some forces which had been
despatched against him. After a brave but unsuccess-
ful resistance, he, along with sixty of his relatives, was
massacred on the spot.

The term Yamseh is usually regarded as a corruption
of the exclamation used by those who take part in the
procession. The Persians and Indians, while taking
part in the solemn festival which represents the funeral
obsequies of the slaughtered prince, are in the habit of
repeating in chorus, "Ya Hosein, 0 Hosein.'' The
Creoles named the procession from this cry, which was
contracted into Yamseh — a word unknown in India, or,
in fact, out of Mauritius. This festival is observed
during ten or eleven days. At its commencement, the
Mohammedans perform their ablutions in the streams
nearest to their abodes, and are in the habit of picking
up some object while diving, which becomes their gris-
gris, or charm, till the next festival. Being generally

1 84 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

poor, they have recourse to begging in order to defray
the expenses of the ceremony, which are considerable.
They .levy contributions upon all classes, without dis-
tinction of rank, race, or religion. At an early hour
in the morning, the begging procession issues from the
Malabar camp, which is situated on the Pamplemousses
road. Those who take part in it have their faces paint-
ed, and are dressed in gay, particoloured rags. They
are preceded by a band of performers beating the tom-
tom, and making that barbarous noise which the In-
dians, and they alone, esteem to be music. The leader
of the procession carries in his hand a naked sword,
and is followed by two native priests, bearing aloft a
dish filled with sugar or boiled rice, and covered with
rose leaves. This dish is presented to the occupants of
the different houses which they visit, as a token of
friendship, and an invitation to take part in their reli-
gious ceremony, by sharing part of the expense. This
invitation is seldom refused, and while their attendants
are busy collecting the offerings with plates, the mol-
khs are profuse in their obeisances, salaams, and
prayers for the future happiness and prosperity of the
contributors. There is an air of dignity and self-re-
spect in a Mohammedan beggar, amid all his salaams,
to which a European professional can never attain.

This money is expended principally in paying the
workmen that have been employed in the construction
of the goulin, which is borne in procession on the great
day of the festival. This gouhn is a species of pagoda,
made of bamboo, and covered with tinsel and paper of

GOUHNS AND AIBORJ^S. 185

different colours. It consists of three storeys, each of
which seems to rise from the interior of the other, the
one at the base being the largest. The services of the
most skilful workmen among the Creoles, Indians, and
Chinese are secured for its construction, which some-
times occupies four months. Each storey of the gouhn
is built in a separate hut, one side of which is knocked
down, to allow it to be withdrawn. When the different
storeys are completed, they are bound together with
strong ligatures, in a fourth hut, large enough to con-
tain the whole pagoda when completed.

On the day before the great day of the Yamseh, the
motley population of Malabar Town begins in the even-
ing to pour in a constant tide towards the Plaine Verte,
There is the same barbarous music as on the previous
days, accompanied with a species of sword-dance, per-
formed by men whose bodies are painted red, inter-
mingled with white and black streaks.

At six o'clock the little procession, as it is called, is
formed. The Indians advance bearing on their heads
small painted pagodas, in shape and size not unlike a
meat-safe, which they call a'idores. These are fol-
lowed by others armed with clubs and broken swords,
with which they attempt to imitate the combat in which
Hosein was slain. At a given signal the whole are in
motion. The bearers of the a'idores whirl round and
round in a fantastic dance with such rapidity that the
spectator is almost giddy at the sight. The combatants
give and parry blows with wonderful dexterity, uttering
at the same time ferocious yells. Others, half-naked

186 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

and unarmed, are howling and beating their breasts in
despair, and rolling in the dust to express their grief
at the untimely death of Ali's son. This scene con-
tinues till midnight, when they return in the same order
to Malabar Town.

Next evening the great procession with which the
Yamseh closes takes place. The gouhn is brought forth
from the hut or temple in which it has been enclosed,
and is borne on poles resting on the shoulders of
Mozambique negroes, who have been hired for that
purpose. These negroes are not followers of Mo-
hammed ; they are only worshippers of Mammon.
Sometimes, if the contributions have been very liberal,
there are two smaller gouhns, besides the principal one,
which is the great object of attraction. It is not with-
out a sort of barbarous magnificence. The gilt and
coloured paper with which its sides are covered is
lighted up within by lamps suspended from the roof,
and without by paper lanterns attached to every angle
and pinnacle of its pointed architecture, like the lights
attached to the branches of a Christmas-tree. These
lanterns are shaken by the movements of the bearers,
and their flickering light is reflected from the gilt sides
of the gouhn, giving it at times the dazzling appearance
of a temple of solid gold. It is preceded by a sort of
torchbearers, who carry at the end of long poles illu-
minated lanterns of glass, representing the sun, the
crescent, and certain of the stars. The procession moves
with slow and solemn step, regulated by the monotonous
dirge-like chant of the mollahs. The aldorh are

THE YAMSEH PEOCESSION. 187

whirled in the air with the same rapidity as the bodies
of their bearers, the sword combats are resumed, the
mourners beat their breasts, and the whole air resounds
with mournful shouts, " Yah Hosein ! 0 Hosein ! "
Besides the pagoda representing Hosein's funeral-car,
there are other figures in the procession, symbolical of
events connected with his death. His last struggle is
represented with death-like fidelity by a bull-necked
Malabar, who dies with an artistic neatness which
Macready might envy. The lion that watched for seve-
ral days over the sacred remains of All's slaughtered son
finds a representative in a broad-chested follower of the
prophet, whose naked skin is painted in imitation of a
lion's tawny hide. He utters the most fearful bellow-
ings, and from time to time makes a rush at the crowd,
which retreats before him. His onsets are restrained
by the cord with which his keeper leads him along,
and by certain mysterious words and magnetic passes,
used by the priest that accompanies him. The devil,
rejoicing at Hosein's death, appears in the form of a
mountebank, who leaps surprising distances into the
air, waving his arms wildly round his head, and hissing
like a serpent.

After the procession has traversed the principal
streets of Port Louis, it directs its march towards the
Lataniers River, followed by thousands of spectators,
some on foot, others in carriages. The Lataniers
River is only worthy of that name in the rainy season ;
in summer it is only a small rivulet flowing through
the Vallee des Pretres. At midnight the procession

188 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

halts at a pool, a short way above the bridge on the
Pamplemousses road, the gouhn is lighted at its four
corners, and dropped into the water. Only its lower
part is immersed in the water, and the flames spread
rapidly from storey to storey, till they rise above it in a
fiery volume, which sheds its flickering light upon the
upturned countenances of the spectators, which exhibit
a richness and variety of colour such as no artist could
represent on canvas. At length the flame dies out,
and the crowd disperses — the Creoles to discuss the
events of the day, the Coolies to feast upon boiled rice
and curried cocks, the approved dish on the occasion of
the Yamseh. These fowls, sacred to the slaughtered
Hosein, and savoury to the Mohammedan palate, which
has tasted no solid food for days, have either been sur-
reptitiously removed by the Coolies from the roosts of
their infidel masters, or have been contributed by their
Creole neighbours, who, while professing Christianity
after a sort, think that a cock bestowed upon the pro-
phet may not be altogether lost. For the same politic
reason, the Yezzids worship the principle of evil. This
miserable exhibition of heathenism is tolerated, if not
countenanced, by the local Government. All vehicles
are prohibited from passing by the route pursued by
the Yamseh procession, and the police attend to pre-
serve order.

Apart from all religious considerations, this festival
has a demoralising influence upon the Coolie population.
It unhinges and unsettles their minds, and makes them
averse to their usual employments. It often leads them

THE MOHAMMEDAN FAITH DYING OUT. 189

to desert their employment and to rob their masters,
who are often obliged to fast during the Yamseh, with-
out the merit of voluntary abstinence. The cook often
disappears, carrying with him the batterie de cuisine,
and the raw material for the manufacture of a Yamseh
supper. Such is his grief for the death of Hosein that
he seldom returns, except it be to console himself with
the contents of his master's plate-chest.

The Yamseh can scarcely be regarded as a religious
festival, or as an indication of the religious faith of
those who take part in it. Of Mohammedan origin, it
is now observed by Hindoos and Mohammedans with-
out distinction. A recent event affords a striking proof
of the religious indifference that has sprung up among
this portion of the population. For the last two years,
the gouhns, instead of being cast into the stream and
burned, as Mohammedan orthodoxy demands, have been
rescued from fire and water, and preserved to take part
in the procession of the ensuing year. This fact may
seem trivial in itself. It shews, however, that faith is
dying out among the followers of the prophet, as well
as among others, and that the spirit of commerce is
stronger than the spirit of fanaticism. There is reason
to believe that the Coolie population has deteriorated, i
and lapsed into crime, in the absence of those restrain-
ing influences which every religion, however bad, must 1
present. Every religion must embody a certain amount \
of truth, to which it owes its existence as a religion at |
all. That truth must exercise a certain influence for /
good upon all who believe it Mohammedanism, with I ,

r

1

1 90 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

all its fanaticism and sensuality — Hinduism, with all
its idolatry and impurity, are better than the absence
or ne^i^ation of all religion, which implies also the ab-
sence or negation of all those influences for good which
the truth embodied in each of these systems can exer-
cise. The condition of the Coolies in Mauritius, with-
out any religion, is more deplorable, so far as their
moral character is concerned, than if they retained their
original faith. There can be no doubt, however, but
that it presents greater facilities for their Christianisa-
tion. Half of the missionary's work is already done.
He has not to destroy the edifice, and then to rebuild
it upon another foundation. It is already in ruins.

The state of practical atheism into which the Coolie
population has fallen, cannot be otherwise than favour-
able to the progress of ciime. The worst religion has
a certain restraining influence over its adherents ; and
it is a dangerous condition for any community, when a
large portion of its inhabitants have cast off* their old
faith, without receiving any substitute. No doubt this
condition cannot be permanent. It is only a transition
state. Man is so constituted that he cannot live long
in the negation of all religion, and must have something
positive to believe in. The history of the first French
Eevolution places this fact beyond a doubt. The
Coolies cannot remain long in their present condition.
Unless a strenuous efiort be made by the Protestant
Church at home to send missionaries to instruct them
in the simple truths of the gospel, like the coloured po-
pulation of Mauritius at the time of the emancipation,

PAUCITY OF WOMEN. 191

they will fall into the hands of the Church of Eome.
That Church has done nothing for them as yet : she
has had her hands full with the Creole population,
which had a prior claim upon her attention. It is only
of late years that the Protestant Churches in the colony
have begun to bestir themselves in this matter. The
Church of Scotland took the initiative, but her adhe-
rents in the colony, though deeply interested in this
question, are not so numerous as to be able to do much
in the missionary field, unless they be aided by the
parent Church at home.

Next to the absence of religion, the greatest cause of
crime among the Coolie population is the paucity of
women. Among Orientals, unaccustomed to restrain
their passions, and deprived of those influences that
teach the exercise of self-control, this must ever be a
fertile source of crime. The Coolie estimate of the value
of human life is not high, and when the passion of
jealousy is excited, it often leads to murder. With the
increase of population there must naturally be an in-
crease of crime, and the amount of crime committed
by the Coolies is not greater than might be expected
under the circumstances in which they are placed. The
increase in the number of murders, committed gene-
rally from motives of jealousy, has been so great of late
years, that the interference of the Home Government
is imperatively demanded. The only cure for this evil
is a more equal proportion of the two sexes among the
Coolie immigrants introduced into Mauritius, Murder
is not the only evil resulting from the present dispro-

192 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

portion ; there are crimes of a different nature, which
cannot be specified.

The proportion of females introduced with the first
immigrants was very small. Only 200 females accom-
panied 10,000 males, so that there was only one woman
for every fifty males. According to the census of 1846,
the Indian population amounted to 48,935 males, and
7310 females, or about one woman for every seven
men. According to the census of 1851, the whole
population of Mauritius amounted to 120,331 males,
and 64,482 females ; but, from the progress of agricul-
ture and the increased importation of Coolie labourers

V jAc^ Is// ^^'^^^ 1851, the population at the present moment can-
• ^,/ ,4? not be less than 230,000, of whom about 130,000 are

M,$L y ^ OG n^^iv^s of India. The disproportion between the sexes
"among the Creole population is comparatively smaller.
There is about one-sixth fewer females than males. If
the present population of Mauritius, exclusive of the
Coolies, be estimated at 100,000, the number of females
belonging to the general population will be about
42,000. When this number is deducted from the
64,482 females belonging to all classes in 1851, and a
certain allowance made for the increase of female im-
migrants since that period, an estimate may be formed
of the present proportion of the sexes among the Coolie
population. There are about 25,000 Indian women
among 105,000 men, or about one woman for every
four men. While this calculation shews an increase in
the number of Indian females since 1846, it proves at
the same time that there is still a great disproportion

"f;/^^

JEALOUSY THE CAUSE OF CRIME. 193

between the sexes, which cannot but be productive of
much immorality and crime. The frequency of murders
committed under the influence of jealousy has directed
the attention of the local authorities to this subject.
The evil in all its extent is fully recognised, but the
sole remedy that can check it, the introduction of more
women, and of a better class than those now in the
island, has not yet been adopted. The Indian women
Lq the colony are of the very worst class, and the agents
in India, instead of sending the present class of women,
should take care that the female emigrants are really
the wives of those whom they accompany. A little
more care in the selection of these women would do
much to ameliorate the moral condition of the Coolies,
and to diminish those crimes that have become so fre-
quent of late years. The evil, however, can only be
remedied by increasing the female emigrants, till they
bear something like the same proportion to the male
population, as the same class among the Creoles. Such
a measure would not only tend to repress crime, but
would also aid very much in checking that desertion of
employment of which the planters complain; and in
establishing a permanent resident Coolie population,
which would make the island independent of the annual
emigration from India. So long as the Coolie labourer,
or in truth any labourer, has no local ties to bind him to a
place, no woman that he can call his wife, and no house that
he can call his home, he will be restless, wandering and
fond of change, immoral in his habits and prone to crime.
The facilities for missionary labour presented by the
N

194 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

present abnormal condition of the Coolies, have been
already alluded to, and it is deeply to be regretted
that the Protestant Churches at home, in concentrat-
ing all their efforts upon the heathen in India,
have overlooked the claims of the same class in Mau-
ritius. No doubt, India is the stronghold of heathen-
ism, before which the battle of the cross must be fought
and won ; but Mauritius is one of those outposts, the
capture of which would contribute much to the
final overthrow of that stronghold. The Coolies in
Mauritius come from the different parts of the three
Presidencies, some of which are so remote as to be be-
yond the pale of missionary enterprise. After the
expiry of their engagement, many of them return to
the places of their birth, enlightened in almost every-
thing save the one thing needful. If these men were
instructed in Christianity, they might convey to their
heathen countrymen the seeds of divine truth, and pre-
pare the way for the advent of the missionary. Through
their travels and the wealth which they have acquired,
they command a certain amount of respect among
their countrymen, who would be prepared to listen
more favourably to the gospel proclaimed by them
than by missionaries imperfectly acquainted with their
language and feelings. At the present moment, when
Eno;land is still thrillincj at the recital of the horrors
that heathenism has perpetrated upon her sons and
daughters, and is seeking to retaliate as a Christian
nation, by bringing the gospel to bear upon the native
population with accumulated force, the importance of

FACILITIES FOE MISSIONARY LABOUR. 195

Mauritius as a missionary field ought not to be over-
looked. There is constant intercourse between this
island and the continent, and almost every ship that
sails for India conveys immigrants to their native land.
These men, while liberated from the bonds of traditional
superstition, remain as ignorant of Christianity as be-
fore. No effort has been made to instruct them, and
their influence upon their heathen countrymen is lost.
Native labour may be one of the great means through
which the evangelisation of India is to be effected.
There is much in the past history of missionary labour
in that country to lead to this conclusion. At least, no
means that seem to have any probability of success
ought to be overlooked. If it could be even shewn that
the Christianisation of the Coolies in Mauritius can
have no influence upon the evangelisation of their
countrymen in India, the duty. of making known the
gospel to them would still remain the same. They have
not the same prejudices of caste as their countrymen in
India, and are almost prepared to accept any form of
religion that may be offered to them. Their moral and
religious condition is thus alluded to in a local publi-
cation, issued in 1854, and the truthfulness of the state-
ment which it contains has never been questioned : —

"There are in Mauritius at the present moment
upwards of a hundred thousand Indian immigrants,
almost entirely destitute of religious instruction, de-
prived of caste, liberated from the bonds of native
superstition, uncontrolled by any moral restraint,
ripe for almost every crime. Kecent circumstances

1 9 6 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

prove that this is no exaggerated picture. Hitherto,
we have been satisfied with their manual labour,
without looking to their moral condition, till the
progress of crime has forced this subject on the no-
tice of every thinking man. All admit the disease ;
the only question is as to the remedy. The disease
may be complex, the remedy may require to partake of
the same character. The extension and better organ-
isation of the established means for detecting and
punishing crime — the compulsory education, if neces-
sary, of all the ofispring of Indian parents, at the ex-
pense of Government or of their employers — and greater
firmness on the part of the Executive in carrying into
effect the sentences of the law ; — such are the means
usually suggested for stemming the rapidly increas-
ing flow of Indian crime. Without questioning the
utility of these as subsidiary measures, the Committee
believe that they can only affect the surface of the dis-
ease, without reaching to the secret principle which is
the cause of all the evil, and which is to be sought for
in the natural depravity of the human heart when un-
enlightened by divine revelation, and unrestrained by
the knowledge of a judgment to come. The law of the
Lord alone is perfect, converting the soul. Human
laws may punish crime, but they cannot produce virtue ;
measures of restraint may divert the course, but they
cannot arrest the progress of the evil. While the foun-
tain remains, the stream will not cease to flow. It is
now as in the days of Elisha the son of Shaphat — the
salt must be cast into the spring, the Lord must heal

A LADY TOETUEED TO DEATH. 197

the waters, so as that there shall not be from thence
any more death/'*

The recent circumstances alluded to in this Report
were several aggravated cases of murder among the
Indians, and the death of torture inflicted upon an old
lady, a native of the colony. Among the atrocities
committed in the Indian mutiny, there has no case been
revealed where greater ingenuity and diabolical skill
in torturing the victim were exhibited. The cupidity
of her servants had been excited by the belief that she
had a large sum of money in the house. This money
had been removed to a place of safety. Ignorant of
this, her servants, with their associates, formed a ]3lan
to rob and murder her. They met at a house in Moka
Street, and fortified themselves for the work in hand
by a hearty supper and copious draughts of arrack.
Twelve of them found their way into the solitary house
which she occupied in Rempart Street. What followed is
known only from their confession after their conviction.
They found the lady in bed, and demanded her money.
She said, truly, that it had been removed. This was
denied by her servants, and they proceeded to torture
her. For four hours their victim was exposed to suf-
ferings such as cannot be described. At the end of
that time she died beneath their hands, and their cupi-
dity was defeated. The cool deliberate cruelty of the
Hindoo character is shewn by the fact, that while their
victim was undergoing her sufferings, her persecutors
were enjoying themselves by drinking her champagne.

* Bible Society Report.

198 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

The crimes of the Indians, however, rarely extend be-
yond themselves. This is the only case where, of late
years, a white person has been murdered by the Coolies.
The murders that are committed among themselves
usually arise from two motives — jealousy and cupidity.
Jealousy is a frequent source of crime in India : its
power must be much more intense in a colony where
the disproportion between the sexes is so great. The
women are a most immoral class, and often become the
victims of their own misconduct and of their husbands'
jealousy. Their foolish fondness of display is another
frequent cause of murder. The rupees gained by their
husbands are manufactured by native jew^ellers into
ornaments for the nose, ears, neck, arms, and ankles.
When these parts of the body are loaded with silver
till they can bear no more, a new species of jewel is
worn. A small clasp of gold is attached to a sovereign,
which is worn round the neck with a ribbon. On all
public occasions these ornaments are ostentatiously dis-
played, and their dusky wearers are often murdered, or
made insensible by the administration of stromnium,
ill which state they are stripped of their jewels. The
victims are sometimes enticed or carried into the cane-
fields, to places little frequented, where their bodies are
found at the cutting of the crop, in such a state of de-
composition that it is sometimes impossible to identify
them.

From the removal of the two regiments stationed in
the colony during the Indian insurrection, and the cha-
racter of the Coolies employed on the plantations, serious

CONDITION OF NATIVE CONVERTS. ] 99

fears were at one time entertained that they might
endeavour to imitate the example of their countrymen.
Subsequent experience proved that these fears were
groundless. A few inflammatory addresses to the Mo-
hammedan population, issued by their moUahs, excited
but little notice, and were speedily removed by the
police. The Coolies, being undisciplined and unaccus-
tomed to the use of fire-arms, would not have been a
very formidable foe. There is no reason, however, to
suspect their loyalty. If there had been a Sepoy regi-
ment in the colony, and the English soldiers removed,
there might have been an attempt at insurrection,
which the discipline of the police and the bravery of
the planters would, no doubt, have speedily suppressed.
Among the Coolies resident in Port Louis there are
about a hundred that have been educated in Protestant
Missionary Institutions, and made a profession of Chris-
tianity in their native land. These men, on tlieir arrival
in the colony, were at once surrounded by all the seduc-
tive influences of sin, without any agency to counteract
these influences. They had no pastoral superintendence
and no place of worship. That under such circum-
stances many of them should have relapsed into those
sinful habits which are common among their heathen
countrymen, need excite no surprise. Such a fact can
aff*ord no argument against the value of missionary
labours, or the fitness of the Hindoo for the recep-
tion of Christianity. It miglit as well be inferred
that, because many natives of the British Isles now
resident in Mauritius, after having been once ad-

200 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

mitted into' the Church through baptism, have now
relapsed into a state of practical infidelity, the labours
of ministers at home are useless, and Christianity not
adapted to the Anglo-Saxon race. Such a fact proves
merely that human nature, amid all the distinctions of
colour and race, is essentially the same, and that men,
however sincere their belief in Christianity may be, are
ever apt to relapse into practical error, when removed
from those influences which alone can retain them in
the way of truth. It is melancholy to contrast the
prayerful labour and anxious care bestowed upon these
men before they made a profession of Christianity in
India, with the utter absence of all the means of grace,
and the all but certain apostasy, to which they are ex-
posed in Mauritius. None of them have really renounced
Christianity, or resumed the profession of heathenism,
though most of them retain nothing of Christianity save
the name. The best educated amongst them, were
trained by the Eev. J. Anderson, senior member of the
Free Church Mission, Madras, one of the most success-
ful labourers that Scotland has ever contributed to the
missionary cause. He is now beyond the reach of all
human praise ; but it is gratifying to find that, " he
being dead, yet speaketh," and that the echo of his
voice is still heard in the islands of the Indian Ocean.
In Mauritius, as well as in Bourbon, there are natives
of India, now reclaimed to Christianity, who bless the
memory of him to whom they were indebted for their
first knowledge of divine truth.

The merit of the first successful inroad upon Coolie

FIEST INEOAD ON HEATHENISM. 201

heathenism in Mauritius is due to the Committee of
the Madras Bible Society. The circumstances under
which it was made are related in their Keport for 1855.
After stating that a large sum had been raised for the
Jubilee Fund, and reserved for special appropriation by
the Committee, the Report proceeds : — " Anticipating
the hearty concurrence of the Home Committee, and
thinking it desirable that no time should be lost in mak-
ing some provision for the spiritual wants of the Coolie
immigrants in Mauritius, your Committee resolved
to despatch two agents to that island, furnished with a
large supply of Scriptures. Mr A. Taylor and John
Baptist, the two persons selected for the work, sailed
in the month of June (1854), in the shii^ Anna Maria.
Your Committee were not aware, at the time of their
agents leaving Madras, of the existence of an Auxiliary
Bible Society at the Mauritius, or they would gladly
have availed themselves of the Committee's help in the
carrying out of their views for the welfare of the immi-
grants. The best arrangement they could make under
the circumstances, was to request their friend and
fellow-labourer, the JRev. J. Hardey, then providentially
detained on the island, and well acquainted with the
Tamil language, to undertake the superintendence of the
agents ; and in the event of his having left, to com-
mend them to the kind care and supervision of the
Rev. L. Banks, who had for a long time manifested a
lively interest in the immigrants. Great was your Com-
mittee's disappointment to learn that, on the arrival of
their agents at the sphere of labour, Mr Hardey had

202 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

gone, and that Mr Banks had been removed by that
desolating scourge, cholera. In this emergency, the
Rev. P. Beaton, Secretary of the Mauritius Bible So-
ciety, appeared. He kindly introduced the agents to
the Committee there, and has ever since shewn a lively
interest in their work.'' Mr Hardey, the missionary
from Madras, to whom allusion is made in the above
extract, had, during his residence in the colony, orga-
nised a small congregation of Tamullian Christians,
who used to assemble at his house on Sundays for wor-
ship. These men had been converted to Christianity
in India, and called upon Mr Hardey, as soon as they
knew that he was acquainted with the Tamil language.
The average attendance at his Sunday service was about
thirty adults, or one-half of the Tamullian Christians
resident in Port Louis. The others were living such
sinful lives as led them to avoid all intercourse with
the missionary. After his departure, his small congre-
gation was dispersed, there being no minister in the
colony acquainted with the Tamil language. Mr
Taylor, one of the agents from Madras, a well-educated
and intelligent Eurasian, resumed the service in the
Tamil language. A better idea of the moral and reli-
gious condition of the Coolies may be derived from
extracts from his quarterly Reports, than from any
vague or general description of their manners. Mr
Taylor entered upon his labours about the middle of
July 1854. On the 12th of October, he writes —

" To convey a clear idea of the impression that has
been made on the minds of the Tamullians generally in

CASTE AND CHRISTIANITY. 203

this town, I have only to state, that what I have witnessed
has often filled my heart with devout gratitude to the
Lord, for His gracious presence and blessing on our
work, and I am thankful also to add, that the favour-
able impression made on the minds of many heathen
and Eomanists does not seem to wear away, as the
novelty of our operations begins to subside, but that,
in most cases, those who once attended with apparent
interest to the gospel have continued to manifest the
same feeling towards it, and many of them even ex-
pressed their intention to attend our Sunday services ;
and, a:lthough this has been done by only a few com-
paratively, yet I can unhesitatingly state that, if the
impression already made on the minds of many heathens
and Romanists, in this town alone, be vigorously fol-
lowed up, great results may reasonably be hoped for.
You will be rejoiced also to know that this opinion has
been expressed by some respectable Eomanists, and that
some of the heathen have said to us, that many among
themselves would prefer our religion to that of the
Romanists, who wanted heavy fees for burials, &c.

" You are already aware that caste, although existing
here in a certain degree, does not present any serious
impediment to the embracing of Christianity by the
heathen ; and as to the difficulties arising from family
connexions, these also seem to have but little influence
among them, as many are known to live together as
husband and wife where the parties are of diff'erent
castes. In reference to inducements to continue in
idolatry, I must mention that, though there has been,

204} CREOLES AND COOLIES.

for the last three or four years, an insignificant temple
about two miles from Port Louis, and though a site for
another has already been engaged, the foundation of
which is to be laid at an early period, yet, as there are
only about five Brahmins in this colony, and these held
in disrepute by the people generally, they are not likely
to give that stimulus to idolatry which is necessary to
excite the people to continue in the observance of its
usages and ceremonies.

" As to the Eomanists, I have to state that, with the
exception of a few of the older inhabitants, and the de-
scendants of some who emigrated to the island before
the British came into possession of it, all of whom,
therefore, are acquainted with a little French, they are
absolutely without a priest to minister to them in the
Tamil language ; so that some of them, on hearing of
my arrival, and mistaking me for a Romanist, expressed
great joy that now at last the opportunity of making
auricular confession and receiving absolution was about
to be offered to them. You will, therefore, not be sur-
prised to hear that the Eomanists in this colony do not
manifest any bitterness of feeling against us, and that
they have not only purchased copies of the whole Bible
and of the New Testament, but that in many instances
they willingly listen to the Word of God, as has fre-
quently been the case when I proposed to read it to them
in some of the houses of the respectable Romanists.
And more than this, what will please you not a little
is the fact, that some of them, including two or three
respectable persons, have attended our Sunday services,

FIRST TAMIL SEEVICE. 205

and are likely to become permanently connected with
us. I must further mention, that even a few, who
appeared a little shy of us at the first, are now shewing
a more friendly feeling, and even speaking of coming to
our Sunday worship. In regard to the distribution of
the Scriptures, you will be rejoiced to hear that twenty-
six copies of the Tamil Bible, three complete copies of
the Old Testament, thirty-six (one-fourth) parts of the
Old Testament, twenty-eight New Testaments, and eight
diglotts, have been sold. Although the above, consi-
dered in itself, may not appear a large number, yet when
the fact that the greater part has been purchased by
Komanists and heathen, who till then had not perhaps
seen a copy of the Word of God, is taken into account,
it must appear to be a matter of sincere thankfulness
to the Lord that He has sent His Word into the houses
of so many that have been sitting in darkness and in
the valley of the shadow of death. As to the smaller
portions of the Scriptures which are given away gra-
tuitously, so many have been distributed among Tamul-
lians who were able to read, and appeared anxious to
have them, that we cannot state the number with any
probability of correctness." After citing several cases,
which prove that the Coolies are anxious to possess
the Word of God, and prepared to make consider-
able sacrifices to obtain copies of it, Mr Taylor con-
tinues— " In reference to our Sunday services, I have
to state, that the attendance has been gradually increas-
ing from six or seven adults (at the forenoon service)
on the first, second, or third Sundays, to twenty-two

206 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

adults on the first of this month. I am happy also to
add, that of the number just mentioned eight or nine
were heathen. In connexion with this, I think I could
safely say that, if a chapel were built in some conspi-
cuous place (as our house is not situated in a central
position), the attendance on Sundays is likely to be
larger. The want of proper seats is also much felt, as
the Tamullians and other immigrants have adopted the
European costume and habits ; and also as a few of the
respectable portion of hearers, not liking to be jammed
up with the lower orders, appear to be uncomfort-
able.

" You are already aware that there are from fifty to
sixty (TamuUian) Protestants in this town, and may,
therefore, be surprised to find that the attendance at
our Sunday worship is not larger. I must account for
this by mentioning the following facts — namely, that
the Lord's day is not generally observed in this town
as a day of sacred rest, but as one of recreation, and
consequently household servants find it hard to obtain
permission to attend the means of grace ; and secondly,
not a few of the Protestants have fallen into the habit
of drunkenness, which is very prevalent here, and some
are living in open adultery. These persons are, conse-
quently, anxious to avoid us as much as possible.

" You will thus perceive that the Lord has opened
up a wide door for making known the gospel to thou-
sands of souls in this colony, and that a favourable oppor-
tunity to commence a mission presents itself here, which
the Lord, no doubt, will put into the hearts of His faith-

THE INDIAN AND APEICAN INTELLECT. 207

ful people to endeavour to do without any further
delay."

Tn the course of the first year, 2750 Scriptures, or
portions of Scripture, in the Tamil language, were sold
or distributed among the immigrants from the Madras
Presidency. A more favourable field for this species
of labour than Mauritius cannot exist. A large pro-
portion of the Indian immigrants can read ; the coat-
ing of caste is rubbed off by the friction of a sea
voyage ; and the Coolie of Mauritius, through constant
contact with other races, has his mind expanded, and
soon becomes intellectually superior to the same class
in India. He receives a fair reward for his labour,
and learns to respect himself as an integral part of the
body poHtic. His reasoning powers are far more
largely developed than those of his African neigh-
bours ; he is, therefore, less apt to become the dupe of
Romish superstition. He has a certain ambition in
life, and knows the value of money; he is, therefore,
less willing to expend it in fees to the Romish priest-
hood. The African is ready to become the slave of
any one that will take the trouble to bind the fetters
upon his soul and his body. Britain has liberated his
body, but Rome retains his soul. Rome knows her
power, and where that power may be exercised with
effect. She has drawn the African within her coils,
and found him an unresisting victim, but she has left
the Coolie alone. The Indian intellect is too subtle to
present a favourable soil for the reception of the seeds
of Romanism. The Indian is guided by reason, the

208 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

African is led by his imagination. The Church of
Kome addresses herself to the imagination by her
pompous rites and imposing ceremonies, and thus pos-
sesses a power of attraction to the African mind to
which Protestantism can lay no claim. But the Indian
is made to be a Protestant, just because he is a think-
ing, reasoning being, who will admit no doctrine unless
he can give a reason for it, and perceive its connexion
with other truths. No one who has undertaken to
impart religious instruction to Indians and Africans
can fail to have been struck with the keen dialectical
power of the one race, and the blind, unreasoning
credulity of the other.

EEV. D. FENN. 209

CHAPTER VL

Arrival of the Rev. David Fenn— His Interest in the Coolie Mission —
Mr Taylor's Second Report— Attempt to Identify Protestantism
with Freemasonry — The Freemasons Excommunicated by the
Roman Catholic Bishop— Coolies neglected by the Church of Rome
— Causes of this Neglect — Connexion between Mauritius as a Mis-
sionary Field, and the Future Evangelisation of India — Deplorable
condition of Christian Coolies — Mr Taylor's Third Report — Arrival
of the Bishop of Mauritius — Mr Taylor's Ordination — John Baptist
— Service for Bengalee Immigrants — Amusing Anecdote ,of an
Indian Servant — Coolie Colporteurs — Good Effected by Reading the
Scriptures — Striking proof of this — Honesty of Christian Servants
— Antipathy against them — Coolie Children Uneducated — An Ex-
perimental School — Its Failure, and the Cause — Mauritius as a
Field for Coolie Education — A Native School — Success of Experi-
mental School — Government Ordinance enforcing Education.

In 1854^'^^ young and devoted missionary, intimately
acquainted with the Tamil language, visited Mauritius,
for the purpose of recruiting his health, which had
been injured through over-exertion and the effects of
the climate of India. This was the Rev. David Fenn,
who had been sent out by the Church of England
Missionary Society to labour in the Madras Presidency.
After his arrival in Mauritius, he manifested a lively in-
terest in the efforts that were being made to bring the
truths of the gospel within the reach of the Coolies in
the colony ; and while the delicate state of his health
prevented him from undertaking so much as he would

210 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

have wished, his advice and experience were very valu-
able, and he kindly aided Mr Taylor in his missionary
labours among the Tamullians. It was not to be ex-
pected that the mass of heathenism in the colony
should be leavened all at once with the leaven of
Divine truth, or that the devoted labours of the two or
three agents at work should produce all at once any
very perceptible results. They had to labour and to
wait in prayerful expectation, that the seed sown might
take root and bring forth fruit. Nor was such fruit
wanting. There was enough of it to justify them
in believing that the Word of God was stirring the
dry bones of heathenism, and preparing the way for
the future labours of such men as God should raise up
to enter in and take possession of the field, and complete
the good work which they had begun. Mr Taylor's
able and interesting Reports shed much light upon the
workings of the Coolie mind, and the obstacles that
are opposed to the progress of Christianity amongst
them. On the 15th of January 1855, he writes : —

" In reviewing the operations and results of the last
quarter, I am led to feel deeply thankful to the Lord
for His continued presence with me in my labours.
It wiU be very gratifying to you to know, that
after the expiration of six months the attention of
both heathen and Romanists to the Word of God has
not diminished in the least, and that throughout the
town generally there is a favourable impression in re-
gard to it. As a proof of the readiness with which they
hear the message of salvation, I would mention that on

SYMPTOMS OF LIFE. 21 1

many occasions they have offered me a small present in
money, which I of course have always refused. Even
a Jew Mohammedans have received our books, and
appear to have lost that violent zeal for their own
religion which they manifest in India. And the desire
to receive our books is so general, that the Bengal im-
migrants have frequently applied for books in Magarree,
as well as in the different languages spoken in that
Presidency. You will also be pleased to hear that
people who have purchased or received books from us
have taken them into the country, where also a slight
movement has been produced by them ; and what will
be peculiarly gratifying to you is a fact that has come
to my knowledge, viz., that two Protestants, having
between them three complete copies of the Tamil Bible,
have taken them to the neighbouring Island of Bour-
bon. In illustration of what I have said, I will give
you a few extracts from my journal for the present
month, to shew the state of feeling still manifested by
heathens and Komanists: —

" '^ili January 1855. — While passing near the mar-
ket I spoke to a Eomanist who appears favourably dis-
posed in reference to the gospel. When I was speaking
to him, a Coolie said to me, that he would shew me a
man who was able to read, and asked me to accompany
him a few yards. He brought me to a group of eight or
ten Coolies near the wharf. I commenced to address
them, and some others gathered round me. Some of
them, who had heard me before, said that they had been
talking among themselves about coming to our Sunday

212 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

services. After I reached home, I found a heathen,
who has attended our services on six or seven occasions,
waiting to speak to me. He said he wanted a book,
which would give him a clear idea of Christian doctrines.
I gave him a Gospel of Luke and a copy of an Elemen-
tary Catechism/

" ' 6th January. — Spoke in five different places this
morning. In one of these, met a man who said he had
been twelve years on the island, but had never before
heard that God had sent His Son to save a lost world.
He appeared very glad at what I said, and promised to
come and see me in my house, to become better ac-
quainted with Christianity.'

"'Qth. — Went to "Kakamoodoo" this morning, and
spoke in a certain place to five or six Tamullians, who
were most of them very attentive. One of them
pressed me to accept a small piece of money. I of
course refused it, and said that the only thing I required
of him was to lay seriously to heart the importance of
the truths I had made known to him. Then went to
Ismal's house. The woman with whom he is living
(and who wants to be baptized), though very unwell
under the effects of a fever, came out of her house and
sat in the yard to hear us. I read to her and to
Narramsamy, (a man living in Ismal's house) the first
ten verses of the fifth chapter of Matthew, and spoke to
them for more than half-an-hour. I next went to that
part of the village where I have most hearers. I here
made the Romanist to whom I had given a copy of the
Gospel of Luke some time ago, read the parable of the

FIEST-FEUITS. 213

prodigal son to me. There were about five others also
listening. After he had finished, I expounded it to
others, and they seemed to feel some interest in what
they heard.'

"'11 ^/i January. — Went to a bazaar in Malabar Town,
and spoke to six persons. The owner of the bazaar was
particularly attentive, and when his assistant wanted to
put me a question, he said to him, " Shut your mouth ;
you '11 now propose a rude question in your usual rude
manner.'' The man, however, promising to say nothing
but what was allowable, proposed his question. It was
this. Whether God was not alike the author of sin as
of virtue ? My answer seemed to satisfy them all, and
the man who proposed the question also asked for a
book. He had received a copy of the Acts of the
Apostles from me some time ago, and I was informed
by the owner of the bazaar, that only the preceding
day something that he had read in it had become the
subject of discussion between them, which appeared to
me to be the reason of the latter trying to stop him
when he was about proposing the question above men-
tioned.'

" After what I have said, you will be naturally led to
inquire, whether any more apparent result has been
produced by the Word of God than the mere assent to
the truth of Christianity. It rejoices me to be able to
answer this question in the affirmative, although at the
same time I would speak guardedly, lest I should ap-
pear to be anxious to give a varnish to facts which in
themselves may not be worthy of particular notice. I

214) CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

would, therefore, only state that among the heathens who
have, on different occasions, expressed a desire to em-
brace Christianity, there are at present at least six
individuals, of whom I have reason to believe that the
impression made upon their minds is not a mere mo-
mentary one, as they have not only constantly attended
our Sunday services, but are also receiving instruction
from me with a view to baptism. My sincere prayer
therefore is, that they may not prove to be either stony
ground or thorny ground hearers.

" In reference to the Eomanists, I have to state that a
great many of the poorer sort appear to have no know-
ledge of the difference existing between their Church
and our own, and that not a few of them appear willing
to attend our Sunday services, and allege their extra
work on the Lord's day as the only reason of their not
doing so. And, although there have been a few in-
stances of Eomanists refusing to receive copies of the
smaller portions of Scripture, on the ground of their
being of a different creed, yet most of them, after being
shewn the importance of every professing Christian
becoming acquainted with the truths of revelation, have
been persuaded to accept copies of the Gospels and
Acts, and even to purchase the larger portions. In
connexion with the above, I must also state that I ob-
served an effort made, soon after our arrival, to mislead
the poor ignorant Romanists, by making out a con-
nexion between Protestants and Freemasons, who are re-
presented to be guilty of the most fearful crimes ; owing
to which some were deterred from hearing us, but I

STKEET-PEEACHING. 215

am happy to state, that I have not lately heard any-
thing which savoured of that unfavourable impression.
I am therefore still of opinion, as stated in my first
Eeport, that if a chapel were built which all could easily
find, many of the Romanists, as well as heathen, would
be induced to assemble in it on the Lord's day, more
especially as not a few of both classes have told me,
when I have seen them in different parts of the town,
that they had come in search of my house, but could
not find it.

" I have further to state, that some of the heathen
whom I have met appear to have received favourable
impressions with regard to Christianity in the several
places in India from which they have come, and that
among them are a great many youths and men in ma-
ture age who have been educated in mission schools in
Tranquebar.

" Another pleasing fact which I must bring to your
notice is, that^some of the heathen who have heard
me, and received books from me, have not only gone
"anT spoken favourably of Christianity to their friends
Tnd acquaintances, whom I had not seen, but have also
induced them to come for books, and even to attend
our Sunday services. And you will be glad to hear,
thatwhen I have been sometimes interrupted (which is
very seldom) in my street-preaching by a drunkard or
one disposed to cavil, the rest of my hearers, so far from
being pleased at it, or disposed to join against me,
have endeavoured to silence the individual who opposed,
either by answering for me or by requesting him to

216 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

listen quietly, telling him they were anxious to hear
what I was saying. And in some shops and bazaars
I have been so well received, that I have been not only
permitted to read or speak for half-an-hour at a time,
but I have also had the happiness of making the owner
read a whole chapter to me, and even two or three
chapters on some occasions, besides listening to my
remarks on the same.

" In reference to our Sunday services, it will be grati-
fying to you to hear, that the average attendance at
the forenoon's service during last month was thirty
adults ; on one Sunday during that month there were
thirty-five present, of these two were obliged to sit in
an adjoining room from want of space in that in which
the services are held. On the same day, three others,
who could not come before, came a little after the ser-
vice was over, and another man, seeing how the room
was crowded, went away without attempting to find a
place. Besides these, a man who came much too early
did not wait until the service commenced. So that there
were altogether forty persons who ^me from various
distances expressly to attend our worship. Thus, you
will perceive, that our out-door work is having a good
effect on some heathens and Eomanists, who form
about one-third of our congregation on Sundays. I
must not omit to mention that Mr Eenn kindly con-
ducted some of the Sunday evening services during the
months of November and December, and that he has
also administered baptism to two children belonging to
the congregation.

EOMANISM VERSUS FEEEMASONEY. 217

" Among the Protestants, or nominal Christians, I am
thankful to observe that there appear to be some signs
of life among those who attend our services, although
I have still to complain that a great many of them con-
tinue to keep aloof from us. Of these some appear
to be irreclaimably sunk in sin and vice, and others
appear happy to find an excuse in the well-known fact
of the disregard of the Sabbath manifested by their
employers. In connexion with this part of my sub-
ject, I have to lament the disproportion of females
among the immigrants as a sad cause of evil, not only
among the heathen but also among the Protestants.

*' Before bringing this to a close, I will just allude to
a subject which I have no doubt must have occurred to
the minds of Christians in India, viz., that the preach-
ing of the gospel in this colony to the heathen is cal-
culated under God to have a salutary effect in the
several places to which the emigrants who have spent
their time return, as many do every year. Under this
impression- I have frequently visited the Emigration
Depot, and spoken to groups waiting there to be sent
back to India.''

The allusion in this Report to the attempt made to
confound Protestantism with Freemasonry, requires
some explanation. At this period the Roman Catholic
Bishop had commenced a crusade against those members
of his Church who had been initiated into the mysteries
of Freemasonry. There are two lodges at Port Louis,
the one patronised by the white and the other by the
coloured population. Freemasonry has struck its roots

2] 8 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

deep into the Mauritius soil — deeper, as the event
proved, than Eomanism. It ranks among its adherents
almost the whole male population that have received
a liberal education, or occupy a respectable position in
life. It has its secrets, known only to the initiated,
its social meetings, its annual balls, and its munificent
charities. It is the rival of Eomanism, or at least it
came to be regarded in that light. The principal lodge
is situated close to the Bishop's palace. His slumbers
may have been disturbed by the sound of revelry by
night, or his episcopal fears excited by observing that the
Creole population became bad Eomanists in proportion
as they became good masons ; whatever the cause may
have been, the fact is certain — he resolved to suppress
Freemasonry. He refused the ordinances of religion
to all Freemasons who did not renounce that system.
He proved by the clearest and most irresistible logic,
that Freemasonry being denounced by Eomanism,
no Eomanist could be a Freemason, and no Free-
mason could be treated as a member of the Church.
His conduct was as consistent as his logic ; he made
no distinction between the rich and the poor — he
refused to all alike the sacraments of their faith
until they abjured Freemasonry, and were re-admit-
ted into the Church.* Throughout the whole of this

* Mass was recently performed at Notre Dame for the souls of the
Freemasons who died excommunicated. What are we to believe ] That
the souls of the masons are still in Umbo, or that the Mass opened a door
for their escape ] Be that as it may, it is clear that Romanism is one
thing at Mauritius and another at Paris, and that the unity of the
Church of Rome exists only in theory.

EOMANISTS BY CASTE. 219

affair, he shewed a clearness of intellect, a strength
of will, and steadfastness of purpose, that did not fail
to excite the admiration of those who had no sympathy
with his tenets, and little interest in the question at
issue. The lower classes, over whom the priests have
the greatest influence, on learning that the Freemasons
were excommunicated, came, naturally, to regard them
as great criminals — a feeling which it was not in the
interest of their religious instructors to remove. To
confound Protestantism with Freemasonry, was to op-
pose the most effectual barrier to its progress.

It is evident from these Keports that the Indians
who are Romanists by caste or by birth, are generally
ignorant of the diff'erence between Eomanism and Pro-
testantism. It may appear strange that the Church of
Home should have neglected her Indian adherents, and
taken no steps to arm them against Protestant errors.
The truth is, however, that Protestantism in Mauritius,
till within a very recent period, was of anything but an
aggressive character. It was rather the negation of
Romanism, than the assertion of any positive principle
of belief. It partook more of the character of an heir-
loom— valued no doubt, but rarely displayed.to the pub-
lic eye — than that of a living principle of faith lodged in
the soul, and causing its influence to be felt by all around.
The Church of Rome knew that her Indian adherents
were in no danger of being seduced into Protestant
error, so long as Protestantism existed under its previous
form in the colony ; and she therefore left them alone.
There was another cause also for this apparent iudiffer-

220 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

ence. Every Indian knows the value of money, andf
has the organ of acquisitiveness largely developed. It J
is the love of money that has loosened all the ties that/
bind him to his native soil, and induced hip to emi-
grate to the Colony. It is the love of monpy that in-
duces him to remain there. Unlike the negiro, who is
content to live from hand to mouth, and has no anxiety \
about the future, the Coolie has a fixed object in view, j)
and he is prepared to endure every privation in order//
v^to obtain it. He knows that it can only be obtained
' ' by money, and that every rupee saved brings him so
much the nearer to the prize of victory. Now, Ko-
manism, as it exists in Mauritius, is unquestionably
an expensive religion. It has a. fixed tariff of charges
for the services it renders to a man, during all the great
events of life, from his birth to his death. It delivers
a man from the burden of personal responsiblity, by
charging itself with the wo^k of his salvation ; but, in
return, it expects a remuneration proportionate to
the value of the services rendered. The negTo is ever
ready to meet this demand, so far as his humble
means will permit, but the Coolie reflects twice before
parting with his money. The sum that brings him
a step nearer to heaven, removes him further from the
goal of his earthly ambition. The latter is close at
hand, visible and tangible, while the other is remote
and unseen ; and if the Coolie keeps all his money and
strains all his energies, in order to gratify his -worldly
ambition, to the neglect of his spiritual interests, he is
perhaps not singular in his choice. It must be borne

MOHAMMEDAN CONVERTS. 221

in mind also, that Romanism among the Coolies is
merely a caste. It does not imply a knowledge of
even the most elementary truths of the Christian faith,
or the observance of any of its rites, or the partaking
of any of the sacraments of the Church of Rome. Many
of them, professing Romanism, have not even been bap-
tized, and their only claim to be members of the Church
of Rome rests on the fact that their fathers or fore-
fathers had once been baptized in India. They have
never been accustomed to pay for the ordinances of the
religion which they profess, and the priests in Mauri-
tius have not such a hold over their minds as to be
able to persuade them to part with their money. Seve-
ral of them, when admitted into the Protestant Church,
expressed their joyful surprise at learning that they had
nothing to pay. When Mr Taylor mentions, in his Re-
ports, that small sums of money had been repeatedly
offered to him by his Coolie hearers, he adduces the
clearest proof of the acceptability of his labours, and
of the effect which they produced upon the Coolie mind.
It were highly desirable that the Protestant Churches
of Great Britain, that are interested in the evangelisa-
tion of India, and sending forth annually devoted mis-
sionaries to that vast field of labour, were impressed
with the value of Mauritius as a missionary station,
and led to perceive the important influence which it
might exercise upon the success of the work which they
have in view. We have already shewn that the obstacles
which oppose the progress of the gospel in India, can
scarcely be said to exist at all in Mauritius. Even the

222 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

Mohammedans, the most bitter opposers of Christianity
in India, seem to have undergone some softening pro-
cess in Mauritius. Cases of conversion have occurred
among them, and they have given satisfactory proofs of
their sincerity. Two of the most active and devoted
colporteurs connected with the Bible Society had been
followers of the false prophet. They shewed a zeal and
an energy in the discharge of their duty, which placed
the sincerity of their convictions beyond all question.
They were consistent members of the Church of Scot-
land, and most regular in their attendance at her services.
The questions which they put to their religious instruc-
tor often displayed a clearness of intellect and subtlety
of reasoning that excited his surprise and admiration.
Their journals, containing accounts of their discussions
with Mohammedans, and the objections which they
made to the truth of Christianity, were very interesting
and highly suggestive. *' God neither begets, nor is be-
gotten," was the objection one day offered by a mollah
in Malabar Town. Their reply, embodying the proofs
of our Saviour's divinity, was such as might have
done honour to any highly-educated Christian. The
evangelisation of India will be the great question of
the religious world in this country for years to come.
The nation is now thoroughly in earnest upon this
subject. The great error of fostering and encourag-
ing heathenism at the expense of Christian principle
is now recognised. Those even who were guided
merely by feelings of expediency, feel that a different
course must be adopted. The policy of Great Britain

A SACRED DEPOSIT. 223

in India was to look coldly on Christianity, and to
press heathenism to her heart, till, warmed by her
favour, like the snake in the fable, it turned upon her
and stung her. It was then felt that no cajolery, no
amount of favour, no sacrifice of principle, could soften
the heart or change the nature of heathenism — nay,
that all such attempts impressed the native mind with
the weakness of the Government which had recourse to
them ; and perhaps first suggested the idea of that
military insurrection which has cost this country so
great an expenditure of blood and treasure. The re-
cognition of error is the first step towards amendment.
There was lately presented to the world the spectacle
of a great nation humbling herself beneath the mighty
hand of God, and promising for the future to be guided
by Christian principle in her intercourse with the
natives of the Indian peninsula. She felt, and long
may she continue to feel, that that vast country has
been committed to her care for some nobler purpose
than merely to extract its treasures or to develop its
material resources ; that the souls of its heathen in-
habitants are a sacred deposit which God has com-
mitted to her keeping, to be answered for at a future
day; and that she can only atone for past error by the
strenuousness of her efforts to increase all the moral
and religious influences that can have a tendency to
ameliorate the spiritual condition of her heathen sub-
jects. While the nation is in this earnest frame of
mind, the importance of the influence which Mauritius
may exercise upon this great work ought not to be

224 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

overlooked. There are thousands of Indians who re-
turn every year from Mauritius to almost every pro-
vince of their native land. They are possessed of
sufficient intelligence and wealth to secure for them the
respect of their poorer and more ignorant countrymen.
Every one of these men might be a harbinger of the
gospel, a pioneer to clear the way for the advent of the
missionary, if they were only Christians. And what is
to hinder them from becoming Christians ? Only the
apathy or the ignorance of the Churches at home,
which have hitherto concentrated all their energies
upon India, without producing any result adequate to
the force expended. No doubt India is the chief
stronghold of heathenism, where the great battle of the
faith is to be fought and won, but to Christianise the
Coolies of Mauritius would not be to overlook the
claims of India. It would be the seizure of an out-
post, from which the war could be carried into the
enemy's country with every prospect of success. More-
over, the soul of a Coolie is of as much value before
God as that of the highest caste Brahmin in all India,
and worthy of the same care and labour. England has
shewn her aristocratic tendencies even in missionary
labour, by aiming at the conversion of the high-caste
natives, and thus overlooking, in a great measure, the
claims of their countrymen of a lower caste. A
Christian Government should strike at the root of
caste, by proclaiming and acting on the equality of
all men before God. Caste has been the curse
of India, and the greatest obstacle to missionary

COOLIE CONVERTS IN INDIA. . 225

efforts. England will soon be strong enough to carry-
out the policy she may deem best for India, and her
first step should be to trample down caste with the
same stern determination with which she is tramp-
ling out the embers of rebellion. But caste has
little influence in Mauritius ; it cannot cross the ocean.
The restraining power of family connexions is scarcely
felt. The Coolie stands alone, is master of his own
actions, and may become a Christian without incurring
any of that persecution to which he is exposed in India.
On his return, he is a person of some consequence
among his own relations, with whose local and foolish
prejudices he can have but little sympathy. The amount
of good which such a man might eff'ect, if a Christian,
it would be difficult to over-estimate. The Hindoos
are, in a high degree, a social and communicative race,
fond of argument and discussion, and open to the force
of reason. Every Coolie that returns from Mauritius
a Christian would tell his heathen countrymen the
great things that God had done for him, would shew
them the Book which contains his faith, and strive to
communicate to them the knowledge of its contents.
He would thus be breaking up the soil for the mis-
sionary, and preparing it for receiving at his hands the
seeds of divine truth. While there are at this moment
about a hundred and thirty thousand Coolies of both
sexes in Mauritius, till the year 1854^ little or nothing
was done to make known to them the way of salvation.
The Churches at home overlooked their spiritual re-
quirements; the few Protestant ministers in the colony,

P

226 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

from ignorance of their language, could do nothing.
The condition of those who had been received into
Christian Churches before their departure from India,
was the most deplorable. They were exposed to all the
temptations with which the colony abounds, without
being within the reach of any of those restraining
or preventive influences which a Chxistian ministry can
exercise. In the town of Port Louis alone, there were
about a hundred of these men ; and who can calculate
the labour, the anxiety, the prayers that had been ex-
pended upon them by their religious instructors in
India ? With what joy must the accession of one con-
vert to the Church of Christ have been hailed ? And
yet does it not seem strange that no steps should have
been taken by any of our Protestant Churches to extend
to Mauritius the ordinances of religion, and that pas-
toral care of which none stand in greater need than the
young convert from heathenism to Christianity ? As-
suredly the responsibility of the missionary does not
end with the profession of faith of those whom he
instructs ; it requires as much labour and care to keep
a man in the faith as to bring him over to the faith.
Considering the state of spiritual destitution to which
the Indian Protestants in Mauritius were condemned,
there is ground for surprise, not that some of them
should have relapsed into sin, but that any of them
should have continued faithful to their Christian pro-
fession. There are few, among those even who have
been born within the pale of the Church, and trained
from their earliest infancy in the knowledge of Chris-
tian truth, who, if exposed to the same ordeal, would

CLAIMS OF MAURITIUS. 227

not have succumbed. This assertion is based on expe-
rience. It is to be hoped that, while measures are
being concerted for more enlarged efforts for the evan-
gelisation of India, Mauritius will receive due conside-
ration, not only because it presents a favourable field
for missionary labour, but also because the seeds of
divine truth sown there* may be conveyed to the remot-
est provinces of India, where the foot of the missionary
has never trod. Negro preachers are always most ac-
ceptable to negroes, and native labour may yet contri-
bute largely to the spread of divine truth in India.
There is no place where this labour may be secured with
less effort, or brought to bear with greater effect upon
India, than Mauritius. When one of Mr Taylor's
hearers declared that he had been twelve years in the
colony without having once heard that the Son of God
had come to save his soul, his words convey a bitter
reproach to those whose duty it was to have provided for
the religious instruction of his countrymen. It is to be
hoped that the time is not far distant when no Coolie
in the colony will be able to make the same assertion.

Mr Taylor's Third Eeport, extending to the 19th April
1855, shews an increase in the attendance at the Sunday
services, and contains proofs that the minds of the
Coolies are favourably disposed towards Christianity : —

" Having now to send you my Third Quarterly Ee-
port, I desire afresh to offer my sincere praises to the
Lord for His continued help vouchsafed to me in my
labours.

"The Sunday services, as well as the out-of-door
work, have continued to afford me as much encourage-

228 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

ment as before ; and in reference to the former, you
will be pleased to hear that the increasing attendance at
the forenoon service having rendered it necessary to ob-
tain a more commodious place than my house for holding
it, I, with the knowledge and consent of the Mauritius
Auxiliary Bible Society, applied at the end of last month
to T. Y. Hugon, Esq., Protector of Immigrants, to allow
me the use, on Sundays, of a large room in the Immi-
gration Depot. This request having been very kindly
acceded to, our forenoon service has been held there
since the beginning of this month, and the attendance
on one occasion was thirty-seven adults, and about
fifteen lads belonging to a school kept by a Komanist,
besides about a dozen children belonging to the mem-
bers of the congregation.

" Since my last Eeport, ten Bibles and fifty-eight
parts of the Old Testament have been sold ; and about
three hundred and forty copies of the Gospels and Acts
have been gratuitously distributed.

" I have also to state, that I went in the beginning
of last month to Tombeau Bay, about four miles from
Port Louis, and stayed there two days, distributing
books, and speaking to the Tamullians in the neigh-
bourhood. I must also mention, that as there are about
a dozen Christians in that locality, who very seldom
attend our Sunday services in town, and as a Chris-
tian gentleman residing there suggested the desirable-
ness of making an effort to bring the Tamullians of
that place under regular instruction, John Baptist, at the
request of Mr Fenn, has gone there on three Sundays,

A PEON BAPTIZED. 229

and spoken to the Coolies in the service of Mr Milne
(the gentleman above referred to), and to the Christians,
who assembled in his premises. I must further state,
that John Baptist has occasionally visited other places
in the country, and says he has met with some encou-
ragement 'among the Coolies employed by the planters
and others. It will be very gratifying to the friends
of the Bible Society to learn that Mr Fenn adminis-
tered baptism to one of the inquirers spoken of in my
last report. The convert is a peon of the Immigration
Depot, whom, together with another peon of that estab-
lishment, I, for about five months, regularly visited
once a-week, with a view of preparing them for bap-
tism. But the other individual, almost at the last
moment, was deterred from receiving the rite by the
opposition of his wife, who threatened to leave him.
My hope, however, is, that the truths he has learned
may at some future time lead him to make a bold con-
fession of his faith in the Saviour.

" I now beg to give a few extracts from my jour-
nal : —

" * ^ih MarchlSoo. — In the afternoon received a visit
from M. P., a respectable Eomanist, residing in Mala-
bar Town. After he left, I went to the Immigration
Depot to instruct the two inquirers there. While read-
ing and explaining the 18th chapter of Genesis to them,
a large party of about twenty returning Coolies ga-
thered around me, and were very much interested in
the account there given of Abraham's intercession for
Sodom, and of the Divine forbearance in being willing

230 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

to spare that devoted city, if there should be only ten
righteous persons found in it/

"'ISt/i March. — Addressed either groups or indivi-
viduals in six different places this morning. The fol-
lowing remarkable incident occurred in one of these
places. After I had been speaking to about a dozen
persons, one of my hearers, a mule-driver, to whom I
had given a book some months ago, and spoken to on
four or five occasions, said to me, " Sir, read the 1 2th
chapter to us.'' As he had not looked into the book
I had in my hand, which was a copy of the Acts, I gave
it to him to look at, and asked him whether it was in
that book that he wished me to read ? He looked out for
the 1 2th chapter, and said, " This is the chapter, sir.''
When I read the account of Peter's deliverance, and
spoke of the care and protection exercised by the Lord
over His people, my hearers seemed to be much struck ;
and another of the mule-drivers said to the man above
referred to, in a very earnest manner, " I often asked
you on a Sunday to accompany me to the preaching-
place, and you have not done so ; " to which he replied,
" You know how frequently I have been unwell." '

" ' 16th 31 arch. — Spoke in four different places this
morning. One of these places was a bazaar, the owner
of which seems to be giving some attention to the Scrip-
tures. He is mentioned two or three times before in
this journal. At my request, he read the 25th and
26th chapters of the Acts to me, and as he wished to
know who Paul was, I gave him an account of his life.
In another place, a heathen, who first refused to receive

INDIAN ESTIMATE OF KOMANISM. 231

a book, took one, after hearing me state the blessings
promised to men in the Gospel, In the evening, went
to Chimatomby's shop. He read the 19th chapter of
the Gospel of Luke to me, and I spoke on the parable
of the talents. Then addressed four men in the street,
and going to another place, spoke to two others, for
about ten minutes.'

" ' 2-Uh March. — Spoke in four places this morn-
mg, but nothing requiring to be particularly noticed
occurred. In the morning, had a very attentive con-
gregation of Tamullians at the depot, while engaged
with the two inquirers (the peons) there. There met
a heathen, who said that he had purchased a Bible from
John Baptist at Pamplemousses, and that he and an-
other heathen had been committing the Lord's Prayer
to memory, and that he had read portions from the
Bible to that man, as he was not able to read, but was
very anxious to embrace Christianity.'

" ' 2o^A March. — The attendance at the forenoon's
service was the largest we have ever had, being forty-
one adults.'

" ' Uh April. — Went to Malabar Town, and entering
the shop of a heathen, whom I last visited on the 20th
of last month, read the 23d chapter of Luke to him
and the man and woman whom I there met on that
occasion. They j^ut to me a number of questions, some
of them having reference to the points on which we
differ from the Eomanists, and said that they perceived
that our mode of worshi|) was more in accordance with
the spiritual nature of God, and the dictates of reason,

282 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

than that adopted by the Eomanists. After conversing
here for about an hour and a half, I rose to leave, when
the woman said to me, " Can you not stay a little
longer, sir? for by listening to these things our sins
will leave us/' Next went to a Eomanist's shop, and
spoke on the necessity of searching the Scriptures,
and on the nature of the Lord's Supper. I also read
part of the 11th chapter of 1st Corinthians to him.
I then went into another shop kept by a heathen, who
is somewhat favourably disposed toward Christianity,
and spoke to five persons, including a woman. They
were all very attentive, and the woman said that the
Scriptures shewed " the true way of salvation." In the
evening, accompanied Mr Fenn to speak to the two in-
quirers at the Immigration Depot.'

" May the Lord cause His Word, which so many have
heard, to run and be glorified in this colony."

Mr Taylor continued in the employment of, the
Madras Society till the end of June, when his engage-
ment with them expired. His last Eeport to that
Society was highly encouraging, and an effort was
about to be made to retain his services by the local
Auxiliary, when the Eight Eev. Dr Eyan, the newly
appointed Bishop of Mauritius, arrived in the colony.
This gentleman, whose attainments as a scholar^ are
only equalled by his humility as a Christian, and who
unites the most engaging manners with devoted zeal to
the cause of Christ, as soon as he arrived in the colony,
began to manifest the warmest interest in.,aU,.the re-
ligious Associations which he found there, and to coun-

283

tenance and support them in every way. His sympathy
was excited when the spiritual condition of the Coolies
was brought under his notice, and through his liberality
Mr Taylor was enabled to continue his labours for
three months longer under the direction of the Com-
mittee of the Bible Society. During this period he had
an opportunity of making himself thoroughly acquaint-
ed with Mr Taylor's character, and appreciating the
value of his labours among his heathen countrymen.
There was only one drawback to his usefulness. Mr
Fenn had returned to his own field of labour in India,
and when the Coolie converts discovered that Mr Tay-
lor could neither baptize their children, nor administer
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, their respect for
him was diminished. To prevent this feeling from
gaining ground among the congregation which he had
organised, and which owed its existence to his labours,
it was necessary that he should be admitted into sacred
orders, and Dr Eyan, in the exercise of a wise discre-
tion, ordained him to the work of the ministry. The
school-house connected with the Church of England in
Port Louis was set apart as a place of worship for the
Coolie converts, and Mr Taylor has continued to offici-
ate there ever since. This place, however, is not suffi-
ciently central, and it were highly desirable that a
chapel should be erected either in Malabar Town or
the quarter of the Trou Fanfaron, the two spots where
the Coolie population is principally located.

A passing tribute of praise is due to John Baptist,
Mr Taylor's coadjutor, who, notwithstanding certain

234 ' CREOLES AND COOLIES.

angularities of character, and a sternness of disposi-
tion similar to that of the old Covenanters, discharged
his duties in such a faithful manner, as to gain the
esteem of his employers, and to induce the Com-
mittee of the Bible Society to continue him in his
former field of labour after the expiry of his en-
gagement with the Madras Society. He became a
consistent member of the Scotch Church, and several
of the heathen baptized there owed their first know-
ledge of divine truth to his instructions. Towards
the close of 1856, he was removed to Mah^bourg, where
his wife teaches a Tamil school, while he continues to
labour in connexion with the Bible Society.

After Mr Taylor's ordination and removal to the
school-house as a place of worship, the Sunday service
at the Immigration Depot was not given up. Mr Taylor
had devoted his attention exclusively to the Tamullians,
so that the native converts from the Bengal and Bom-
bay Presidencies, of whom there is a considerable num-
ber in the colony, derived no benefit from his services.
It was considered desirable that some provision should
be made for their spiritual wants. A pious ofiicer of
Engineers, whose name may yet one day be associated
with those of Vicars, Lawrence, Havelock, and other
Christian heroes, had formed a small missionary asso-
ciation, supported chiefly by the soldiers of his own
corps. He raised sufficient funds to enable him to en-
gage an intelligent Christian from the Bengal Presi-
dency, who laboured among his countrymen partly as
a Scripture-reader, and partly as a colporteur. The

PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 235

local Bible Society supplied him with Scriptures for
sale and distribution ; but he devoted his time chiefly
to reading and explaining the Word of God to his
heathen countrymen, for whose benefit he opened a
Sunday service at the Immigration Depot, which was
attended by about forty Bengalees.

When God has a work to be done in any land, he raises
up labourers specially adapted for that work. This re-
mark holds true of Mauritius. While the great difficulty
in India, connected with the employment of native agency
in evangelical labours among the heathen, appears to be
the want of properly qualified men, this want has been
scarcely felt in Mauritius. . Devoted and Christian men,
whom God seems specially to have trained for the work
of imparting Christian instruction to their countrymen,
came forward of their own accord and off'ered their ser-
vices. One of these, a member of the Scotch Church,
was brought under my notice under rather singular
circumstances. I received a letter from the stipendiary
mamstrate at Port Louis, which had been addressed to
him by a Coolie. It was in English, and wonderfully
well written. The writer stated, that his employer had
condemned him to a species of labour performed only
by the lowest class of Coolies, which exposed him to the
ridicule of all his countrymen, and begged the magis-
trate to intercede in his behalf. As he had been en-
gaged as a house servant, I was anxious to ascertain
the cause of his disgrace. It was rather ludicrous. The
greatest intellectual treat of the Creole tradesman is his
daily morning paper. Isaac's master had occasion to

236 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

complain of the lateness of the delivery of his Cern^en, uip
but his complaint brought no redress. One morning he ■
happened to enter the kitchen, when he discovered the
cause of the delay. He found Isaac conning the editorial
leader, with the keenest interest painted in his counte-
nance. He escaped with a sound beating, and the pro-
mise from his master that if he caught him again at
the same offence, he would skin him alive, like a second
St Bartholomew (" II I'^corcherait tout vif, comme un
autre Saint Barth^lemy''). This threat deterred him for
some time from a repetition of the offence. At length
the craving of his mind for some intellectual food be-
came irresistible, and he gratified his thirst for know-
ledge even at the risk of losing his skin. He was
discovered, beaten, and degraded to do the work of a
Coolie convict. I pointed out to him the impropriety of
his conduct, which he fully admitted, but at the same
time declared that such was the monotony of his exist-
ence, and so irresistible his craving for intellectual
excitement, that he could not have avoided the reading
of the only printed publication within his reach, at the
risk even of undergoing the martyrdom of St Bartholo-
mew. Assuredly this is the highest compliment that
ever was paid to a Mauritius editor. More congenial
labour was found for this sufferer in the cause of know-
ledge. After being examined as to his knowledge of
Christian doctrine, and subjected to an ordeal of several
months, through which he passed with an irreproach-
able character, he was engaged as a colporteur by the
Bible Society, in whose employment he still remains.

LEAEN TO LABOUE AND TO WAIT. 237

He retained his love of knowledge, and I could always
make him supremely happy by the loan of the Home
News. This anecdote may appear trifling to some ; to
others it will convey a clearer insight into the Hindoo
character than a whole chapter of abstract reasoning or
plausible generalisation.

Another colporteur, a native of Madras, had been a
pupil of the Free Church Institution, conducted by
the Eev. J. Anderson, now deceased. He had received
an excellent education, and spoke and wrote English
with considerable ease and correctness. Though in-
structed in the evidences and doctrines of Christianity,
and, as he himself afterwards confessed, convinced of
its Divine origin as a revelation from God, a feeling of
false shame prevented him from making a pubKc con-
fession of his faith. He remained nominally a follower
of the false prophet for several years after his arrival
at Mauritius ; but some of the hooked truths of God's
Word had taken hold on his soul, and he could not
shake them off. He would willingly have sought the
advice of some Christian minister, but was employed in
the interior of the island, so that he had no oppor-
tuity of consulting one. At length, God, in mercy to
his soul, suffered him to be visited with a severe acci-
dent, which prevented him from leaving the hospital
for several months. During his illness he made a vow,
that if God restored him to health he would apply to
some minister for baptism, and make a public confession
of his faith in Christ. He became a communicant in the
Scotch Church, and a member of my Bible class, where

238 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

he gave satisfactory proofs of the excellent system of
training adopted in the Free Church Institution,
Madras. I relate this fact, not only because it is inte-
resting, as shewing the workings of a mind under
strong convictions of truth — it may convey encourage-
ment perhaps to some Christian missionary who feels
his heart beginning to faint and his zeal to flag, be-
cause after all his prayers and labours he sees no fruit,
and no evidence that the blessing of God is with him.
Let him wait with patience — his labour is not lost, it
will yet bring forth fruit. " The wind bloweth where
it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst
not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is
every one that is born of the Spirit.'' Mr Anderson
must have marked this youth's vigorous intellect ; he
may have prayed for him, and watched with eagerness
for some indication that his soul was moved by the
power of divine truth. He watched in vain — the intel-
lect was enlightened, but the heart was apparently
untouched. God's ways are not as man's ways ; Mr
Anderson died, but his work remained. The truths he
had taught, by the blessing of God, exercised such a
powerful influence over this man's soul that he could
find no peace till he became openly a Christian. Let
missionaries then take courage from the reflection which
this fact naturally suggests, that though for years they
may seem to have laboured in vain, and prayed in vain,
their labours and prayers have not been lost — they are
known to God and treasured up by Him, it may be
to be reproduced at some future period, when they

A MIDNIGHT SCENE. 239

have gone the way of all living, with no outward
meii;iorial to mark their existence. A missionary has
not lived in vain, or laboured in vain, if he has gained
even one convert to Christ.

In the course of two years, about 6000 Scriptures
and portions of Scripture, in the different dialects of
India, were sold or distributed among the Coolies by
the six colporteurs in the employment of the Auxiliary
Bible Society. The good effected by this species of
labour will be more evident in after years ; meanwhile,
there are already many pleasing proofs of the good
that may be done by the reading of the Scriptures.
Often when enjoying a solitary ride in the country
districts during the cool part of the day, have I come
upon groups of Indians, either listening with fixed
attention to the reading of the Bible, or engaged in
animated discussion upon some portion which had just
been read. I one day examined a New Testament in
Tamil, which I found an Indian reading beneath the
shade of a tamarind tree in the Grande Riviere district.
The margin was covered with writing, which I found
to be references which he had marked for his own use —
a task which he would never have undertaken if he had
not felt a deep interest in the book. The following
anecdote was brought under my notice by the manager
of an estate in the Plaines Wilhelmes district : — The
Coolies are very much addicted to gambling, and as
their labours prevent them from indulging in this vice
during the day, they often endeavour to practise it by
stealth during the night. A good deal of irregularity

240 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

of this kind had sprung up at one time upon the
estate, but it was believed to have been suppressed,
when the manager on one occasion returning home
late at night, observed a light in a large apartment in
the Indian camp. Suspecting that the Indians were
gambling, he approached the window without being
observed, and on looking in witnessed a sight which
filled him with surprise, and perhaps gave rise to more
serious feelings. A large party of Coolies were seated
in a circle round one of their countrymen, who was
reading by the light of a rude lamp the Word of God,
to which they were listening with rapt attention. The
whole scene — the reader, the audience, and the imper-
fect light of the lamp playing at times on their dark
Oriental features — formed a subject worthy of the pencil
of a Eembrandt, and produced a deep impression upon
the mind of the spectator.

That the reading of the Bible by the Coolies is calcu-
lated to produce some other effect than the mere gratifica-
tion of an intellectual craving, or of an idle curiosity, is
proved by the fact that two congregations of Christians
have arisen from the labours of the colporteurs, and
that about twenty Indians were admitted into my own
church, after they had given satisfactory evidence of
their sincerity and of their knowledge of the doctrines of
Christianity. I had no reason to regret having admi-
nistered to them the ordinance of baptism ; there was
not a single case of apostasy amongst them ; in fact,
they were more exemplary and regular in their attend-
ance at the house of God than many of those who had

liNUlAJN WUMJliiN UJr-rUftJliJJ lU »J±llU»riAJNii 1. Z'tl

been brought up as Christians. As some of them were
my own servants, I had the best opportunity of making
myself acquainted with their character and conduct;
and I can honestly testify, that I did not discover a
single case of falsehood, dishonesty, immorality, or
drunkenness amongst them, after their admission into
the Church. On one occasion, I was absent from home
nearly two months, during which my house was left in
their entire charge, and on my return I found every-
thing as I had left it. I could not have done so if
they had been heathens ; they would almost to a cer-
tainty have looted the house and escaped with the pro-
ceeds. My experience leads me to conclude that the
native women are more opposed to Christianity than
their husbands, who are sometimes prevented from re-
nouncing heathenism by their wives threatening to
leave them. One of my servants had long been favour-
ably disposed to Christianity, and received instruction
in its doctrines. He was prevented from making a
profession of his faith solely by the opposition of his
wife, who, sometimes, when the subject of Christianity
was introduced, raved and stormed as if she had been
labouring under demoniacal possession. At length a
sudden change came over her ; she expressed a desire
to be instructed in Christian doctrine ; and after a
time she and her husband were both baptized, and
married a few days afterwards. They could not have
been actuated by any motives of self-interest; they
knew that I intended to leave the colony soon, and thai,
they would have some difficulty in finding another
Q

2-12 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

place. The truth is, that there is a strong antipathy
among the British residents in India and Mauritius
against native converts, who, it is asserted, generally
retain their original evil propensities, with the acquired
vices of Europeans. No doubt such cases may occur
when the converts are removed from the guidance and
instruction of the missionaries, at a period when they
stand most in need of their counsel and aid ; but there
is no reason to suppose that such is the general charac-
ter of this class. We have known some of them that
would have reflected honour upon any Christian
Church ; and there is reason to fear that the British
residents in India often object to native Christians as
servants, because their own lives are not consistent
with the principles of Christianity, and because the
presence of a native convert is often felt to be a re-
proach to their sins.

The education of the off'spring of the Coolie immi-
grants has hitherto been very much neglected, and they
cannot be said to enjoy the same educational advan-
tages as their parents, who have been born in India.
From a calculation, grounded upon statistics collected
in the colony, I am inclined to believe that about ] 0
per cent, of all the immigrants introduced can read and
write — a proportion that may well bear comparison with
the number enjoying the same advantage in England
and Wales, and which forms a striking contrast with
the ignorance to which their children, born in the colony,
are condemned. It may be safely assumed, from the
census of 1851, and the annual returns of the Protector

INDIAN CHILDREN UNEDUCATED. 243

of Immigrants, that there are eleven thousand Indian
children of all ages up to fourteen resident in Mauri-
tius. Of these, about five thousand eight hundred are
from four to fourteen years of age, or, in other words,
have reached that period of life when the mental facul-
ties are sufficiently developed to profit by instruction,
and the physical frame too weak to be fit for severe or
constant toil. This remark holds particularly true in
regard to Indian children, whose mental powers soon
reach their maturity, and who shew a peculiar aptitude
for the acquisition of knowledge in early life. No
means of instruction worthy of the name were provided
for this class till a recent period. It is true that the
Government schools are open for children of all the
races resident in the colony ; but the offspring of the
Coolies, for obvious reasons, derived little advantage
from this source. These schools are taught by men
ignorant of the dialects of India, and therefore disquali-
fied for imparting instruction to children who know no
other language. The strange patois known as Creole,
which is learned by the Indian children with great
ease, is not worthy of being called a language, and can
scarcely be said to afford any facility for the acquisition
of French. Accordingly, from returns made by different
masters of the Government schools on the subject of
Indian children, it would appear that, of the five thou-
sand eight hundred who are capable of instruction, not
more than twenty of pure Indian origin attend the Go-
vernment schools, while the number of those of mixed
origin, who, while retaining their Indian names, are in

244 CEEOLBS AND COOLIES.

habits and associations identified with the Creole popu-
lation, is about one hundred. Thus, while 10 per cent,
of the Indian immigrants can read and WTite, only 2
per cent, of their offspring enjoy the same advantage,
in a colony which almost owes its existence to the in-
dustry of their parents. It was asserted by many that
the Indians did not wish their children to be educated.
Although it is scarcely conceivable that men who have
received the advantage of education should wish their
children to be brought up in ignorance, an experiment
made at the instance of the late Governor, who shewed
himself on all occasions the warm friend of education,
did not hold out great encouragement to those in-
terested in this question. In 1858, a school was opened
ill the district of the Savanne for the instruction of
Indian children, but after a period of eight or nine
months, it was found that only sixteen scholars had
attended, and that their progress was not at all satisfac-
tory. This experiment was regarded by many as con-
clusive. It may not appear in that light, however, when
the facts of the case are known. The schoolmaster,
though a native of India, had no experience in educa-
tion, and no interest in the subject. He accepted the
jolace because it suited his convenience, and left it as
soon as he found employment in keeping with his former
habits. A school undertaken under such auspices could
scarcely have succeeded, and its failure affords no in-
dication of the state of feeling among the Coolies on
the subject of education.

The ignorance in which the Indians born in the colony

EDUCATiOJN AJNJD MlSSlOJVAKYLAiJOUK. Z^D

are plunged, presents a serious obstacle to the success
of any attempt to impart to them a knowledge of the
elementary truths of religion. The most ignorant crea-
ture may, no doubt, be a recipient of Divine grace ; but
it is admitted by all who are qualified to give an opinion
upon this subject, that education is a most powerful
auxiliary of religion, and ought not to be neglected or
overlooked in any attempt at the evangelisation of the
heathen- Mr Taylor, in his First Keport, alludes to
this subject : — " As the children of immigrants are left
entirely without any education, and as many of the
adults who appear anxious to have copies of the Scrip-
tures can read but very imperfectly, the establishment
of a school will be a powerful auxiliary to the object
contemplated by the Bible Society. I have mentioned
this verbally to the Rev. P. Beaton, Secretary of the
Mauritius Auxiliary Bible Society, and at his request
intend to send him a letter upon the subject/'

A series of questions submitted to Mr Taylor, whose
knowledge of the condition of the Indians in the colony
entitles his opmions on the subject of Indian education
to much weight, elicited the following replies : —

" I consider Mauritius, on the whole, as promising a
field for the education of Indian children as India. The
only disadvaniage that seems to me to exist on the side
of Mauritius, in regard to the education of the children
of the Indian immigrants, is, that as even lads of ten or
twelve years of age are eagerly engaged as servants,
parents in indigent circumstances will be led to seek
employment for their children, rather than endeavour

246 CREOLES ANI> COOLIES.

to receive for them the benefits of education. But this
disadvantage, I think, 'prevails no further than Port
Louis, where there are so many families requiring house-
hold servants. Yet even here I am sure that no less than
three purely Tamil schools, in different parts of the town,
may be successfully conducted. As to the condition of
Indian children here in point of education, I have only
seen one regular school, kept by a Eomanist, in which
there are about twenty- one lads — the tuition fee of two
shillings for each scholar operating as a hindrance to
poor parents.

" If schools were opened, and the principles of Chris-
tianity imparted to the scholars, I do not think that any
parents would object to sending their children on that
account. All the schools conducted by missionaries in
the Presidency of Madras, where there are so many
things operating against the spread of Christianity, are
conducted with the view of instilling the truths of the
gospel into the minds of the rising generation. The
use of heathen books of an objectionable character is
strictly forbidden, and yet the heathen generally are
glad to avail themselves of the gratuitous education
afforded in the schools ; and they have not been de-
terred from doing so even where conversions have
repeatedly taken place, as has been the case in con-
nexion with the English schools, conducted by the mis-
sionaries of the Free Church of Scotland, at Madras.

" I am decidedly of opinion, that as education based
on Christian principles has a tendency to raise the tone
of moral feeling, so must it offer a check to the com-

A NATIVE SCHOOL. 217

mission of those low and bestial crimes in which the
poor ignorant heathen, whose minds are under the con-
taminating influence of a corrupt religion, often delight
to indulge. The education imparted in vernacular
mission schools in India is of the simplest kind, em-
bracing no more than elementary studies ; but where
the object is to reach the higher class of Hindoos,
English is always taught. In these schools, the stand-
ard of education varies considerably. Masters for the
vernacular schools may be had in the colony at an
average of twelve dollars per month, allowing about
six dollars per month for house-rent, and fourteen
dollars per month for school-books. The annual cost of
each vernacular school, including contingencies, would
be about 230 dollars (£4i6) per annum/'

There are few among the labouring classes in England
who would be willing to pay a school-fee of two shillings
per month for each of their children, and yet the worst
paid agricultural labourers in England gain twice as
much money in the shape of wages as the Coolies in
Mauritius. When a Coolie pays two shillings per month
for the education of one of his children, he is expending
one-eighth of his whole income on that child ; and the
fact that there are parents amongst them prepared to
make this sacrifice, aff'ords the strongest proof of their
desire to procure for their offspring the same educa-
tional advantages which they themselves enjoyed in
India. I visited the school taught by the Romanist. It
was situated in a miserable lane, in the neighbourhood
of the Trou Fanfaron. Delicacy and a sense of pro-

248 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

priety prevent me from entering into details ; suffice it
to say that the slums of Westminster are clean and
healthy compared with the hotbeds of cholera and
fever, in this quarter, that remain unvisited by the
police and uncared for by the Municipality. There was
no window, or means of ventilating the horrid little
den, where about twenty Indian boys were assembled,
and half suffocated by the foul atmosphere which they
breathed. How a school could have been conducted in
such a place, without the scholars having been deci-
mated by fever, seems inexplicable. And yet, in 1855,
this was the only school for the education of the
thousands of Indian children that swarm in the streets
of Port Louis. The Government, after the failure of
the school at the Savanne, did nothing further in the
matter, and before they would resume consideration of
the question, it was necessary to prove by experiment
that the education of the Indian children was practi-
cabla Through the kind assistance of General Hay,
Messrs Stein and Campbell, and a few other members
of my congregation, I was enabled to open an Indian
school in a healthy part of the town, where the popu-
lation consisted principally of Coolies. Its success
proved that the Indian parents are, at least in many
instances, anxious to secure the education of their
children. The average attendance was about ninety
children of both sexes, although the boys preponder-
ated. School-books were procured from Madras, and
the progress made by the pupils was very great. In-
struction was imparted in Tamil, the only language

COMPULSORY EDUCATION. 249

with which they were acquainted. Their ignorance of
English or French prevented them from deriving
any advantage from the Government schools, the
teachers of which are ignorant of the dialects of India,
the only medium through which instruction can be
conveyed to them.

The success of this experiment was brought under
the attention of the local Government, and the question
of Indian education opened up afresh. The cause found
a warm advocate in the newly appointed Attorney-
general, Mr Dickson ; and in 1857, an ordinance was
passed rendering the education of children of a certain
age compulsory. The utility of this measure will de-
pend very much upon the spirit in which it is carried
out. No assistance can be expected from the Creole
planters, who as a class are opposed to the education
of the lower orders, and unless the Government be
firm, this ordinance, like many others, may remain a
dead letter. So far as the Indian children are con-
cerned, any attempt to impart instruction to them save
through the medium of their mother tongue must
prove a failure. When the Vicar of Wakefield's son
undertook to teach the Dutch English, he forgot that
to do so he must first learn Dutch himself. Govern-
ment-school teachers undertaking the task of Indian
education, find themselves exactly in the same predica-
ment. It ought not to be forgotten, moreover, that
Mauritius is a British colony, and if the knowledge of
any foreign language is to be imparted to them, the
preference ought to be given to English, and not to

250 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

French, which can be of no use to those amongst them
who return to India. There can be no difficulty in pro-
curing from India teachers familiar both with English
and with the different dialects of their native country,
and these are the only men who can be useful as
teachers among the Coolie children. Above all, they
ought to be sound Protestants and consistent Christians.
England has kept good faith with the inhabitants of
Mauritius. She has not only preserved the established
religion, as she was bound to do by the terms of capi-
tulation— she has done much to strengthen and pro-
mote it. Let her shew herself for once to be Protestant
and consistent, by insisting that the principles of that
faith which she herself professes, and of none other,
shall be taught in the Indian schools. This will be
only just. The Church of Eome has done nothing for
t\ye Coolies in Mauritius ; she has practically ignored
their existence. The Protestant Churches have taken
the initiative in this matter, they have been the first to
occupy the field, and our earnest prayer is that they
may be able to retain it, and that Mauritius may yet
be the Icolmkill of India — the small but central point
from which the rays of divine truth shall emerge to aid
in dispersing the clouds of heathen ignorance that are
still impending over that vast peninsula.

EDUCATION. 251

CHAPTER VII.

State of Education in Mauritius — Effects of Slavery — Planters' Ideas
of Education — "Want of it among the Lower Classes — Proportion of
the Uneducated to the Educated — Evil Effects of Ignorance — The
Royal College —Private Schools— Government Schools — Roman
Catholic Schools — Necessity of an Extended System of Education —
Ateliers d' Industrie — Compulsory Education — State of Religion —
Romanism at the Capture of the Island — The Fite (ZeDiew— Present
Condition of Romanism — Superstition of the Lower Classes — The
Roman Catholic Bishop— Freemasonry — The Church of England —
Her Former Position in the Colony — The Rev. L. Banks — Mission
at Bambou — Chapels at Moka and Plaines Wilhelmes — Visit of the
Bishop of Ceylon — Rev. Gideon de Jeux — State of Religion at
Seychelles — Dr Ryan appointed Bishop of Mauritius in 1855 —
London Missionary Society — Rev. J. Le Brun — The Church of
Scotland — The Mauritius Church Association — The Auxiliary Bible
Society — The Seamen's Friend Society.

From the pictures of social life in Mauritius already
presented to the view, no sanguine expectation could
be entertained that education and religion, the two
greatest humanising and elevating influences that can
be brought to bear upon any community, are in a
satisfactory condition. In colonial life, as in all primi-
tive states of society, the attention of men is first
directed to the means of satisfying the more imme-
diate wants of nature, which are far more urgent than
the cravings of the intellect and the soul for mental
and spiritual food. In slave colonies the wants of our

252 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

spiritual nature are generally overlooked, and, in truth,
the system of slavery is so degrading and brutalising,
that its victims soon lose all capacity for receiving
secular or religious instruction. Those also who profit
by that system are, from motives of self-interest, op-
posed to the spread of education among the slaves,
which could only render them dissatisfied with their
condition and increase their thirst for liberty. The
planter of Mauritius, who, after working his slave
through the day, sent him out to hunt for his food in
the forests at night, was not at all likely to feel a deep
interest in his education. The only schoolmaster he
knew was the commandant, the only discipline the
driver's whip. The animus prevalent in the colony
with regard to the education of the lower classes ap-
pears from an ordinance on public instruction, passed
by the local legislature in 1835, which requires
teachers of private schools to obtain the previous
sanction of Government; and, even when obtained,
it might be withdrawn on report of the Committee
of Instruction, which consisted of thirteen members
chosen by the local Government. By the same ordi-
nance it was enacted, that any party opening a school
without permission was liable to a fine not exceeding
d^20 sterling, and to have his school closed.* The
object of this ordinance is obvious. The Committee
of Instruction was composed of men resolutely op-
posed to the education of the lower classes, and they
were thus invested with a power which en,abled them

* It was afterwards rejected by the Home Grovernment.

planters' ideas on education. 253

to frustrate every attempt made by missionaries or
others to open schools for imparting the elements of
secular and religious knowledge to the negroes.

In truth, the planters of Mauritius, till the close of
the last century, seem to have received little education
themselves, and must have regarded any attempt to
educate their slaves as little better than a mauvaise
plaisanterie. One can conceive one of these vs^orthies,
on hearing the question of popular education first
broached by an enthusiastic young missionary, address-
ing him 4n language similar to that of the Principal of
Louvain — " You see me, young man ; I never had any
education, and I don't find that I ever missed it. I
have been made a member of the Committee of Instruc-
tion without education ; I have ten thousand dollars
a-year without education ; I eat my curry heartily
without education ; and, in short, as I have no educa-
tion, I do not believe there is any good in it." The
advantages of education were not publicly recognised
till the foundation of the Royal College in 1791 ; and
even then they were confined to one small section of
the community. I never met with an old slave who
could read or write, and when the British and Foreign
Bible Society offered a Testament after the abolition
of slavery to every one of the apprentices who could read,
it was found that out of a negro population of about
70,000 souls, there were only ten who could profit by
the gift. It is only rendering an act of justice to for-
mer British slaveholders to state, that in the West
Indies there were 100,000 applicants for the same gift.

254 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

In glancing at the state of education, at the present
moment, it may be well to calculate the number of
those who are old enough to receive instruction, and
to contrast it with the number actually attending
educational establishments. In making this calcula-
tion, no account is taken of the offspring of Indian
parents resident in the colony. Their position in
regard to education is considered in another part of
this work.

From a Report of a Special Committee of Council,
dated 7th February 1855, it appears that education
had made little progress among the lower classes of
society. According to the returns of the census made
in 1851, there were about 38,000 Creole children of
all classes (excluding Indian) in the colony. Of these
23,500 were between the ages of four and fourteen, or
at that period of life when the opportunities of impart-
ing instruction are most available, and the mind's re-
ceptivity most active.

From the Report of the Superintendent of Govern-
ment schools for the year 1854, it appears that the
total number of children (of whatever origin) attending
these schools was 2089, or deducting the Indian chil-
dren, of whom very few attend, that the Creole pupils
amounted to 2000. If a small allowance be made for
the increase in the juvenile Creole population between
185] and 1855, it may be calculated that the propor-
tion then borne by the scholars attending the Govern-
ment schools, to the juvenile population between four
and fourteen years of age, was 8*5 per cent.

STATISTICS OF EDUCATION. 255

But education is not confined to the Government
schools, though they alone bring the elements of
useful knowledge within the reach of the lower classes
of the community. There is the Eoyal College, and
several private schools, in Port Louis, besides those in
connexion with the Church of Kome, and the Society
for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. The num-
ber of pupils attendmg these different institutions in
1855, was calculated at 3500. If to this number be
added the 2000 attending the Government schools, it
will follow that the proportion of Creole children re-
ceiving instruction to the whole juvenile population is
about 14 per cent., or 22 per cent, to the 23,500 be-
tween the ages of four and fourteen.

In 1857, the pupils attending the difierent schools in
the colony were 5376, viz. : —

Attending Eoyal College, . . . 284 -

„ Government Schools, . . 1860

„ Christian Knowledge Society's Schools, 89
„ Private Schools, . . 2235

„ Roman Catholic Schools, . 908

5376

The scholars of the different schools amounted in
1855 to 5500, exclusive of Indian children, while in
1857, including all classes, they amounted only to 5376.
As there must have been a considerable increase in the
juvenile population in the course of two years, this
result shews that education is rather retrograding
than advancing in Mauritius, and that the proportion
of educated to non-educated children is even less than

256 CBEOLES AND COOLIES.

14 per cent. The proportion of the whole population,
that can read and write to those who do not possess
this advantage is about 8 per cent. In this estimate
no account is taken of the Indian population. The
Coolie immigrants are, on the whole, a better educated
class than the Creoles.

According to the last census of England and Wales
(excluding other parts of the British Empire), out of a
juvenile population of more than four millions of chil-
dren, between the ages of five and fifteen, 1,768,000 were
attending day schools, so that the proportion of the edu-
cated to the non-educated was more than 44 per cent.,
and the proportion of day scholars to the whole popula-
tion about 10 per cent. It follows from this that there
are 2 per cent, more of day scholars in England than of
persons of all ages in Mauritius that can read and vmte.

The whole extent of the ignorance prevalent among
the lower classes in the colony, is not brought to light
by this calculation. Their children form a very small
part of the 14 per cent, that are receiving instruction.
While in England nearly nine-tenths of the whole
instruction given by national, denominational, public,
and parochial schools is, by its very nature, designed
for the benefit of those who will have to earn their
bread by the sweat of their brow, in Mauritius more
than 80 per cent, of the whole instruction given is
devoted to those whose prospects in life elevate them
above the conditions of manual labour. While only
about 14 per cent, of the whole juvenile population are
receiving the advantages of education, an unusually

THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE MISSIONARY. 257

large proportion of this fraction are enjoying an edu-
cation such as wealth or easy circumstances alone can
procure. Out of about 25,000 children, the number
at which those between four and fourteen years of age
in 1857 may be estimated, only 5376, including Indian
children, were receiving any kind of instruction, and at
least one-third of these were receiving an education
such as comparatively wealthy parents alone can supply,
and the remaining two-thirds a lower kind, while some
20,000 Creole children, old enough to receive instruc-
tion, were left in a state of utter ignorance. If to these
20,000 Creole children be added about 6000 Coolie
children of the same age, the whole number of children
capable of receiving instruction and condemned to
ignorance, in 1857, was about 26,000.- The evils re-
sulting from the gross ignorance of the lower classes
in Mauritius cannot be over-estimated. It places them
beyond the pale of civilisation, and renders the labours
of the missionary of little use. "When youth has been
spent in ignorance and vice, instead of being devoted
to self-improvement and the acquisition of knowledge,
the whole nature of a man becomes so degraded that
he cannot comprehend the truths of revelation, or re-
ceive them for his guidance. No doubt the Spirit of
God can act anywhere, and wherever He acts. He acts
irresistibly, so as to quicken those who are spiritually
dead ; but it is not necessary at the present day to prove
that education and the gospel, the schoolmaster and the
missionary, should go hand in hand, and that when
their labours are separated, humanly speaking, little

258 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

success can be expected. At the present day, Protes-
tant ministers find access to the Creole population only
through the Bible, and to those who cannot read the
Bible is a sealed book.

The Koyal College, founded soon after the outbreak
of the French Eevolution, has conferred many advan-
tages upon the children of the upper classes, and its
French rectors appear to have been men of a superior
class. Many of its pupils have distinguished them-
selves in Europe, and the education imparted is equal
to that of the public schools in England. The reli-
gious element has been excluded, in order to conciliate
the Roman Catholic part of the population. As might
have been expected, this sacrifice of principle was un-
successful in securing the end in view, and in 1852
the Roman Catholic bishop opened a rival college,
which, after dragging out a comatose existence of
a few months, expired. The Creole parents shewed
that they esteemed a sound education without the reli-
gious element, a greater boon than an imperfect educa-
tion according to the strictest principles of Romanism.

The success of the Royal College, as of every similar
institution, must dej^end in a great measure upon the
character and acquirements of the rector and his staff
of assistants. At one period, when under the direction
of a French rector, the pupils amounted to four hundred,
but in 1845 there were only one hundred and eighty.
It will be already, observed that the present number is
considerably larger, and yet the college might attract
a far larger attendance.

PROFESSORS OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE. 259

Mr Meldrum, one of the professors, has received the
advantages of a university education, and while highly-
successful in imparting a knowledge of mathematics to
his pupils, has been able to devote much of his time to
the study of meteorological science, for the cultivation
of which Mauritius affords many facilities. One great
means of enhancing the usefulness of the Eoyal College,
and of attracting a higher class of teachers, would be to
make the salary of each professor equal to that of a
colonial chaplain, and to bestow such appointments only
upon those who are graduates of universities. So long as
the professors are under-paid, it cannot be expected that
a high class of men will expose themselves to exile,
and to all the inconveniences of Mauritius life, for the
sake of the miserable pittance which the Government
allows in the shape of salary to the professors. Under
the present system, these men have no recognised status
in society, apart from that which their individual ta-
lents or acquirements may procure for them, and no
adequate retiring allowance, after their energies are
exhausted by the labours of their arduous profession.
A grant of d^lOOO per annum, to supplement the sala-
ries of the professors, would do much to procure a
higher class of men for these appointments, and to
raise the Eoyal College to a degree of efficiency to
which it has never attained under the present system.

The private schools in Port Louis do not deserve any
special notice. The education imparted in them is
adapted to children, whose tender years prevent them
from attending the Eoyal College, or to those whose

260 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

parents are opposed to the use of the English language,
the medium of instruction in that institution. The de-
crease in the number of pupils attending the Eoyal
College is ascribed, in some measure, to the establish-
ment of these schools.

Lady Mico's Charity, the object of which was to ex-
tend the advantages of religious and moral instruction
to the negroes and coloured population of the British
colonies, included Mauritius within the field of its use-
ful labours. A large proportion of the limited num-
ber of those who can read and write amonoj the neoro
and coloured population, are indebted for this advan-
tage to the schools in connexion with Lady Mico's
Charity. These schools have been given up, and the
Government schools, founded on a different basis, and
supported by the colony, have been erected in their
stead. The exclusion of all religious instruction is one
of the rules most stringently enforced in these schools.
The teachers are permitted to read a portion of Scrip-
ture in the morning, but they are prohibited from ex-
plaining, or making any remarks upon the portion they
read. At one time, an order was issued from the Co-
lonial Secretary's office, prohibiting the reading of the.
Scriptures, but it was immediately suppressed. The
object of this restriction, in regard to the explanation
of the Scriptures, is to avoid exciting the prejudices or
fears of the Eoman Catholic priests and parents ; and
this attempt to secure their good-will, by the sacrifice of
Protestant principle, has been about as successful as
the endeavour to secure the loyalty of the Brahmins in

PROTEUS-LIKE ASPECTS OP EOMANISM. 261

India by ignoring Christianity. So long as the teachers
in these schools are Protestants, the priests cannot but
regard them with distrust, and look upon the restric-
tion about the explanation of the Scriptures as only a
blind to conceal the proselytising spirit by which they
are actuated. The priests, therefore, on this ground,
are opposed to these Government schools, and have
dissuaded their adherents from allowing their children
to attend them. They could not well do this, without
providing other schools, under their own direction,
where the children could be instructed without the
danger of imbibing Protestant error. Accordingly,
they have done so in some of the country districts, and *
their influence, in one or two cases, has had the effect of
nearly emptying the Government schools. As a general
rule, the Church of Kome is not favourable to educa-
tion. The blind credulity which she demands from her
adherents can only flourish in the soil of ignorance ;
but, Proteus-like, she can change her outward form ac-
cording to circumstances, and appear as the advocate
or the enemy of education, just as it may suit her inte-
rests. She holds the coloured population of Mauritius
too firmly in her grasp to dread the relaxing eff'ect of
a small dose of education administered by her own
priests.

If Mauritius is ever to rank among the civilised de-
pendencies of the British crown, and to enjoy that self-
government which is being gradually extended to other
British colonies, effectual steps must be taken for the
removal of that ignorance, to which more than four-

262 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

fifths of her inhabitants are at present condemned. It
is sufficiently clear, from the statistics already given, that
the present educational machinery is altogether insuffi-
cient for the supply of the wants of the community,
and that education itself, before its blessings can be
extended to the lower classes, must be placed upon a
different basis. In highly-educated communities, where
the advantages of knowledge are felt and recognised by
all, interference on the part of the State may be unne-
cessary, because every parent, having experienced in his
own case the advantages of education, will strive to pro-
cure the same blessing for his children ; but in Mauri-
tius, where the mass of the people are sunk in the most
deplorable ignorance, and careless of everything save
the gratification of their immediate wants, it is the
duty of the State to intervene, and to rescue the rising
generation from the ignorance in which their parents
are plunged. Selfishness is the characteristic of colo-
nial life, and it would be vain to look in Mauritius for
the establishment of any of those institutions for the
education of the lower classes, to which Christianity has
given birth in England and elsewhere. Nothing is to
be expected from private generosity, or charitable feel-
ino;, or ecclesiastical munificence. If the lower classes
are ever to be educated, the work must be undertaken,
carried on, and completed by the State. It is as absurd
to expect these classes to' educate themselves, as to ex-
pect a dead man to restore himself to life ; the prin-
ciple of vitality is equally wanting in both cases. The
objection, that education will unfit its recipients for the

ATELIERS D'INDUSTEIE. 263

duties of their humble position, has no force when aj)-
plied to those who have no knowledge of, or regard for
these duties — who contribute nothing to the general
prosperity — who in ordinary times live from hand to
mouth on the unearned produce of a prodigal soil — and
who in times of famine or want fall back upon that
provision which the law has made for their subsistence,
at the expense of the industry of the working part of
the community.

In the neighbouring island of Bourbon, after the
recent abolition of slavery, the Government, in order to
prevent the emancipated slave population from abusing
their liberty, and training up their children in indolence,
ignorance, and vice, established ateliers d'industrie in
connexion with the schools that were opened. The ob-
ject of these work-shops was to teach a useful trade to the
children of the former slaves, and thus enable them to
occupy a respectable and useful place in society. A simi-
lar system, conjoining the work-shop with the school,
and making attendance at both compulsory, might be
highly beneficial in Mauritius. It would be only an
extension of the principle already adopted in England,
by the establishment of schools in connexion with fac-
tories, with this difference, that there would be small
factories in connexion with the schools. Besides the
mechanical arts, many branches of industry might be
cultivated in these schools, and an impetus thus given
to the development of the material resources of the
island hitherto unknown. At present, sugar is the
staple article of produce, and if the cane should become

264 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

subject to disease, so as to fail in yielding the ordinary
supply, the whole community, dependent for its support
on this single resource, would be exposed to want and
misery. The instruction of the lower classes in the cul-
tivation of other branches of industry, would serve in
some measure as an antidote against the occurrence of
this evil.

The expectation that the descendants of the slave
population in Mauritius will ever hire themselves out
as agricultural labourers, so as to supersede the neces-
sity for the present supply of labour from India, or that
the diffusion of education among them will alter their
feelings on this subject, will never be realised. The
remembrance of the horrors of slavery is engraven upon
their memories with a pen of iron, and no lapse of time
will ever erase it. Labour in the fields will ever be
regarded by them as a mark of degradation, on account
of the painful associations and memories which it
awakens. It is different with other kinds of manual
labour. The Creoles exhibit considerable skill in ac-
quiring a knowledge of the mechanical arts, but, from
want of instruction, every kind of skilled labour is very
rare and expensive. The establishment of work-shops,
under the care of skilful mechanics, similar in character
to those now occasionally employed as lay missionaries
in India, would be productive of much good, and pre-
vent a large portion of the population from becoming
dependent, at any period of unusual pressure, upon the
general resources of the colony, to the formation or
increase of which they have in no way contributed*

THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD. 265

In 1857, after considerable opposition, an ordinance
was passed by the Legislative Council, by which edu-
cation was rendered compulsory on all classes in Mauri-
tius. If this law is not to remain, like many others, a
dead letter in the statute-book, it will be necessary
that the sum previously voted annually for education,
amounting to nearly <£^1 1,000, be doubled, so as to de-
fray the expense of the additional Government schools
that must be opened. As no law can be executed unless
it carry with it the approval of the community whom
it affects, and as the planters are generally opposed to
the education of the lower classes, unless the local
Government shew more than their usual firmness, this
attempt may prove a failure, and the reign of ignorance
and vice may be perpetuated. To render the attempt
successful, it will be necessary to secure the services of
more efficient teachers than are to be found at present in
the Government schools. These schools are, at present,
the last refuge of the destitute, and the social position
assigned to the teachers, though equal perhaps, in most
cases, to their merits, is such as to hold out no induce-
ment to any man of education to accept such an ap-
pointment. They have nothing to aspire to beyond the
pittance doled out to them as a retiring allowance, when
they are no longer fit for service. They have no per-
sonal interest in the success of their schools ; they
receive the same pay for ten scholars as for one hun-
dred, and thus they are under the influence of none of
those feelings or motives that, in other professions,
excite men to exertion. Every pupil at a Government

266 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

school pays one sliilling per month as a fee, but the
teacher has no share in this sum, which is collected for
the Government. If the salaries of the teachers were
partly dependent upon the number of their pupils, there
would be a larger attendance at the schools. A man
who really loves his profession, and is guided by a high
sense of duty, will not be influenced by such considera-
tions ; and Mr Clerk's school at Mahebourg, both as
regards attendance and the intelligence of the pupils,
is an evidence of the large amount of good that one
such man can effect. Such cases, however, are excep-
tional, and the establishment of additional schools, or
the enforcement of attendance, will produce little bene-
fit, unless the services of a higher class of teachers be
secured. The whole question of education in Mauritius
is worthy of the attention and revisal of the Home
Government.

Eomanism is the form of religion to which the vast
majority of the Creole population are nominally attached.
The few husbandmen from Bourbon who first settled
in the island, after its desertion by the Dutch, yielded
the management of their temporal and spiritual affairs
to a few missionaries of the order of St Lazarus, whp
exercised the same influence over their minds as the
parish cures among the simple-minded peasantry of
France at the present day. The island, however, was
soon overrun by adventurers of all classes from France,
who openly avowed the infidel principles of the Ency-
clopaedists, and lived in the open neglect of all the
ordinances of religion. The seeds of infidelity thus

ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENT OF 1810. 267

sown in the Mauritius soil have taken deep root, and
produced their natural fruit in the irreligion and immo-
rality that pervade all classes of the community. The
influence of the priests has not been able to stem the
tide of infidelity, and the principles of Voltaire have
more influence than those of Jesus Christ. The lower
orders have adopted the outward form of Christianity,
without being instructed in its doctrines or imbued
with its spirit, and Mauritius occuj^ies the invidious
distinction of being the most irreligious of all our
British colonies.

When the island was captured by the British in 1810,
it was stipulated by the terms of capitulation that the
established religion should be preserved. If the British
Government had confined themselves to the strict terms
of this agreement, the support of the Eoman Catholic
clergy would not have been a heavy burden on the
Colonial Treasury. In 1810, the population of Mauri-
tius amounted to about 80,000, and there were only
four priests to watch over the spiritual interests of all
the inhabitants. These priests were paid on the strict-
est principles of economy, ^100 being the annual
salary of each ; so that the whole ecclesiastical estab-
lishment of the colony cost only c£*400 per annum,
about one half of the sum which is now paid annually
as salary to the Eoman Catholic Bishop. As each priest
had the cure of 20,000 souls, little or no efibrt seems
to have been made to instruct the slave population in
the principles of religion. A few of them may have
been baptized, but the cruel treatment to which they

268 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

were daily subjected must have prejudiced them against
the religion of their masters. The promise of heaven
in a future world could have but little attraction for
them if that heaven was to be the home of their tor-
mentors on earth. They were shrewd enough to suspect
that the white men would gain the supremacy over
them there, and found more comfort in the belief that,
after death, they would be restored to their kindred and
their native land. The British Government have done
everything in their power to increase the influence of
the Church of Kome. Instead of preserving the estab-
lished religion on the basis on which they found it, or
increasing the number of priests in proportion to the
increase in the population, they have nearly quadrupled
the number of priests, and pay to the Koman Catholic
Bishop annually about twice as much as the French
paid to their whole ecclesiastical establishment. The
80,000 inhabitants of the colony in 1810 were nomi-
nally attached to the Church of Eome, because no other
religion was recognised by the State. The present no-
minal adherents of the Church of Eome do certainly
not exceed tliat number, and their knowledge of her
tenets is perhaps not much greater than in 1810, and
yet there are now in Mauritius thirteen priests, who
receive from the Colonial Treasury an average salary of
<£*200 each, and a Eoman Catholic Bishop, who receives
d£'780. The established religion has certainly been
preserved, and something more.

The Government were not satisfied with increasing
the number and doubling the pay of the priests of the

I

F^TE DE DIEU. 269

Cliurch of Eome ; they countenanced her idolatrous
rites, by commanding Protestant officers and soldiers
to be present at, and to take part in them. At the
great annual festival of that Church, the fite de Dieu,
which was celebrated with much pomp, the most beau-
tiful girls in the colony walked in procession through
the streets in white robes and with uncovered heads,
strewing flowers before the "Host," and the streets
through which the procession passed were lined by
British soldiers, who presented arms and fired salutes
in honour of what all Protestants must regard as an act
of gross idolatry. I have met with many Christian
men in the ranks of the British army, and if one of
these had refused to take part in this idolatrous rite,
his refusal would have cost him his life. This blot on
the escutcheon of Protestant England has now been
removed by the noble stand made by a pious officer of
artillery, who sacrificed his future prospects in life in
order to do away with this reproach to his religion and
his country.* The salutes are now fired by the cannon
at the Eoman Catholic Bishop's palace, the finest build-
ing in the colony.

At the capture of the island there were only two
Roman Catholic churches in the colony, one at Port
Louis and the other at Pamplemousses. At the pre-
sent moment the whole island is studded with chapels,
some of which have been erected by a tax levied on
Protestants and Roman Catholics without distinction.

* A similar incident, attended witli the same result, occurred at
Malta.

270 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

The churches at Mahebourg, Plaines Wilhelmes, and
Poudre d'Or are very handsome buildings. Wherever
a few negro huts are huddled together, one of them is
erected into a chapel, which differs from the others
only by the cross erected at one of its extremities.
Occasional services are held there, and no effort is
spared by the priests, under the guidance of Dr Collier
their Bishop, to bring the black and coloured popula-
tion within the pale of their Church. Any religion,
however imperfect, must be preferable to the utter
irreliojion, isrnorance, and vice in which these classes
were plunged before the abolition of slavery. At that
period, so powerful were the feelings of gratitude which
the negro and coloured population entertained towards
their benefactors, that having no religion, they were
prepared to receive any form that Great Britain might
have offered them ; but no effort was made, the golden
opportunity passed by never to return, and they ac-
cepted rather than chose Komanism, as the only form
of religion within their reach. Many of the negroes
are still strongly attached to their ancient superstitions,
and have no connexion with the Church of Kome be-
yond an occasional attendance at her gorgeous cere-
monies, which are calculated to make a profound
impression on the African mind. The priests* endea-
vour to gain their observance of the outward forms of
religion, without instructing their minds in the doc-
trines of that religion which they profess. A few
miracles are said to have been attempted ; but they do
not appear to have had a great success. In short, the

" MONSEIGNEUR FIN VEN^." 271

inass of the Mauritius population of Creole origin,
while nominally Christian, are ignorant of the most
elementary truths of Christianity, and regard their
priests either with slavish fear or superstitious reve-
^nce. Many facts might be adduced in proof of this
assertion ; one may suffice. When the present Roman
Catholic Bishop arrived in the colony, some years ago,
after a visit to Europe, the lower classes turned out in
large numbers to witness his landing. The streets
resounded with the acclamation, "Monseigneur fin
ven^," and the rejoicing was unbounded. A quiet
merchant, passing through the crowd, inquired at a
Creole woman, who was using her lungs lustily, who it
was that had come ? Looking at him with mingled
surprise and contempt, she answered, " Comment done !
vous n'a pas conne? Monseigneur Jesu Christ fin
ven^."*

The present Roman Catholic Bishop has done much
in Mauritius for the Church to which he belongs. He
found her despised, and he has caused her to be feared,
if not respected. By his own confession, he would have
preferred the military to every other profession, but as
circumstances have forced on him the crosier instead
of the sword, he has indulged his warlike temperament
by commencing a crusade against Freemasonry, the
rival institution of Romanism in the colony. He de-
nounced Freemasonry in one of his charges, as forming
one of those secret societies against which a Papal bull
had been directed, and proceeded to excommunicate all

* *' What, you not know ? My Lord Jesus Christ is come."

272 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

the Freemasons who proved recalcitrant Though this
measure exposed him to the abuse of a licentious press,
and created much unhappiness in many private families,
he adhered to it with a firmness worthy of a Hildebrand,
and carried it against all opposition. He possesses the
highly polished manners and insinuating address by
which many of the higher dignitaries of the Church of
Rome are distinguished, and in matters of diplomacy
connected with his own Church has proved himself
more than a match for the simple-minded Governors
with whom he has had to deal. If, in extending the
influence of his Church, he has looked more to the ac-
cession of numbers than to the diffusion of religious
instruction, and been satisfied with an external observ-
ance of the rites of religion, without demanding a
knowledge of those truths of which these rites are
symbolical, the fault rests less with him as an individual
than with the system which he represents. However
imperfect the teaching of the Church of Rome in Mau-
ritius may be, she has done more for the Creole popu-
lation than the Church of England, which had previously
kept herself aloof from them, and has only of late years
begun to bestir herself in their behalf, when little hope
of success can be entertained.

After the capture of the island, a civil and a military
chaplain were appointed to labour among the members
of the Church of England, resident or stationed in the
colony. Tradition has failed to preserve the name of
the military chaplain, while his brother of the civil
service seems to have been a man of the Trulliber cast,

CHTJRCH AT BAMBOU. 273

whose sole claims to posthumous fame rest on the fact,
that he grew the largest cabbages and produced the
best butter of any man in the colony. Neither of
these men did much to strengthen the stakes or to en-
large the cords of the Church to which they belonged.
Two civil chaplains were afterwards appointed, and
one of them, the Rev. Mr Banks, took a warm interest
in the spiritual welfare of the Creole population, and
formed a small congregation of ex-apprentices, while
Rationed at Plaines Wilhelmes. The peculiar circum-
stances in which he was placed prevented him from
entering upon, or carrying into execution, those schemes
for the moral elevation of the lower classes which he
had so much at heart, and being left for many years
without co-operation or sympathy, he might have said
with Elijah, " I, even I only, remain a prophet of the
Lord." He was mainly instrumental in raising the
funds for the erection of the neat little chapel at Plaines
Wilhelmes, where he officiated for some time, and if
his valuable life had been spared, his future career,
free from every obstacle, might have been one of great
usefulness. Good men are often removed while they
seem to be most needed on earth, while the useless,
like unripe fruit, are passed by.

Mr Banks found an assistant in his labours among
the Creoles, in a young medical officer on the staff,
stationed at Bambou. Touched by the spiritual " dark-
ness visible'' of the Creoles who came to consult him
about their bodily diseases, he began to speak to them
of that still greater disease of the soul, for which the

274 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

GreaLJ*liys.iciaa..MQlia..has provided a. remed;^ He
who alone can give efficacy to such labours, verified
His own promise, " My word shall not return unto me
void." There was a shaking among the dry bones of
heathenism, and some of those who had been recently
emancipated from the chains of slavery by the gene-
rosity of Great Britain, were by the grace of God
emancipated from the still more grievous slavery of sin.
The little church thus formed at Bambou became as a
light shining in a dark place, the rays of which found
entrance elsewhere.

Through the liberality of Lady Gomm, a small
chapel was erected near Reduit, the Governor's
country residence, for affording the means of worship
to those resident in the Moka district, who, owing to
the distance, could not attend church in Port Louis.
As there has been no resident clergyman either at
Moka or at Plaines Wilhelmes, Protestantism has not
taken root among the Creole inhabitants of either of
these districts, and the small Creole congregation formed
by Mr Banks at Plaines Wilhelmes dwindled away
after his removal to Port Louis.

In 1850, the colony received a visit from Dr Chap-
man, the Bishop of Ceylon. As he was the first
Protestant Bishop who had ever touched its soil, many
Episcopalians, who were well advanced in years, profited
by his visit and were confirmed. WhUe it is question-
able whether the incorporation of Mauritius with the
diocese of Ceylon would have been an advantage to
the former, there can be no doubt but that Dr Chap-

THE SEYCHELLES ISLANDS. 275

man's visit roused the Protestants from the spiritual
lethargy into which they had sunk, and gave an
impetus to Protestant principles, the effect of which
is still felt. Under his auspices the Mauritius Church
Association was formed, the object of which is to pro-
pagate the doctrines of the Church of England in the
colony. This Association engaged and jpaid a mis-
sionary, the Eev, Gideon de Jeux, who laboured under
their direction in the districts of Plaines Wilhelmes
and Black Eiver for three years, at the end of which
he was placed on the staff of colonial chaplains, and
paid by the Government. The congregation formed
by the medical officer at Bambou is under the care of
]\Ir de Jeux, whose labours extend over a large extent
of country. The spiritual destitution under which the
former slave population and their descendants are
labouring may be learned from the fact, that in 1853..
he baptized 17^ adults, who had been living in a state
of heathenism. It appears that Mr de Jeux's usefulness
is much enhanced by his knowledge of the healing art,
and that his skill as a physician is only equalled by
his success as a missionary.

The Seychelle group of islands is a dependency of
Mauritius, and the residence of a Civil Commissary.
Until 1832 there was no minister of any Christian
Church stationed in these islands, and the inhabitants
lived, died, and were buried without the benefit of any
religious ordinances. In 1832, a minister of the Church
of England was appointed to the Seychelles ; but after
one yeai-'s experience he quitted the colony, which was

276 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

afterwards visited by the Rev. Mr Banks. The reli-
gious services which he conducted were well attended,
and he baptized and married a great many that had
never been admitted into any Church, and had only
been married by the Civil Commissary, Having been
authorised by about four thousand of the inhabitants to
represent their spiritual destitution to the Government,
and if possible to secure the services of a minister of
the Church of England, he was successful in his efforts
in their behalf, and Mr Delafontaine, a native of Swit-
zerland, was appointed Civil Chaplain at Seychelles.
In 1855, this gentleman was succeeded by the Rev. Dr
Fallait, whose knowledge of the French language and
superior attainments give promise of much usefulness
in his remote and isolated field of labour. In 1853,
the Council of Government extended the Church
Building Ordinance, already in force in Mauritius,
to the Seychelles Islands, and there is reason to be-
lieve that a building devoted to the exclusive service
of God has now been erected in these distant depen-
dencies.

Dr Ryan, the present Bishop of Mauritius, arrived
^n the colony in June 1855. His appointment has
been a most fortunate one, and it were highly de-
sirable, for the sake of sound religion and of peace,
that men of similar principles were appointed to the
Episcopate in other British colonies. From the mo-
ment of his arrival he manifested that catholic spirit,
and ready co-operation in every good work, that have
procured for him the confidence and esteem of all

JOHN LE BRUN. 277

sections of the Protestant community, and led him to
be regarded as the model of a missionary Bishop.
Many after leaving the colony will look back to their
intercourse with him with feelings of unmingled
pleasure, and unite their sincere prayers that the
blessing of Almighty God may rest upon the labours
of His accomplished and devoted servant. Since his
arrival two new churches have been opened at ^lahe-
bourg and Pamplemousses, and also a Seamen's Float-
ing Chapel in the harbour of Port Louis, where the
Rev. Mr Bichard, who devotes his whole time to the
seamen, officiates. Through Dr Ryan's influence and.
efibrts the number of Protestant ministers has been
increased.

No sketch of the condition of religion in Mauritius
would be complete without a brief allusion to the
labours of the venerable John Le Brun, who has been
labouring as a missionary in the colony, under the
direction of the London Missionary Society, for nearly
forty years. The good old man I I think I see him
still, with his snow-white hair, his open honest coun-
tenance, his simple but touching eloquence, and his
earnest faith — an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no
guile. He might have sat as the original of the Swiss
pastor, La Roche, in Mackenzie's beautiful tale. For
a^period of nearly forty years he has continued to
labour among the negro and coloured population, and
the history of his labours would be highly interesting.
He has had to surmount many difficulties, and to
struggle against many disadvantages ; but his earnest,

278 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

buoyant faith has never forsaken him. I have heard
him relate, with a naivete that lent additional charms
to the narrative, the account of the failure of his first
attempt to form a congregation in Port Louis. There
was a strong prejudice against him and his mission,
and though he hired a room, none would attend. He
was sneered at as a Methodist, and everything done by
the petty local authorities to annoy and discourage
him. At length he saw that if any good was to
be done among the coloured people he must go out
to the highways, and force them to come in. He
commenced the experiment with four young gamins,
whom he found playing in the street. He enticed
them into his little chapel, and engaged in prayer.
Feeling that his work was now really begun, he was
most earnest in imploring a blessing upon it. At
length he concluded, and was proceeding to address
his audience, when to his surprise he found himself
alone. The audience had disappeared during the
prayer. This failure, however, did not discourage
him ; other attempts were made, and accompanied
with better success. The jealousy of ^:he police was
excited, and his meetings were suppressed by the ap-
plication of a local law, still in force, which forbids
more than fifteen persons to assemble in one place
without the permission of the Governor. At length
he obtained immunity from this absurd restriction, and
has ever since continued to enjoy that religious tolera-
tion which is now extended to all religious bodies in
Mauritius. Since that period he has been labouring

CHTJKCH OF SCOTLAND. 279

earnestly and successfully in the evangelisation of the
negro and coloured population. He opened a school
in connexion with his mission, and some of the
wealthiest men of colour in the colony owe their posi-
tion to the instruction thus imparted. The emancipa-
tion of the slaves added largely to the number of his
adherents, and there are now four congregations con-
nected with the religious body which he represents.
These congregations have places of worship at Port
Louis, at Moka, at Plaines Wilhelmes, and at Grande
Eiviere. Mr Le Brun has devoted all his time and
talents to the elevation and Christianisation of the
coloured people, who owe him a debt of gratitude
which they can never sufficiently repay. He is now
assisted_in his labours by his two sons, and almost all
the Protestants among the coloured population are
members of his church.

In 1851, a minister of the Church of Scotland was
appointed to Mauritius. For many years before, a sum
had been set aside in the annual estimates of expendi-
ture as the salary of a Presbyterian minister, but the
Scotchmen in the colony failed to profit by this con-
cession. At length, a few of them, previously con-
nected with the Church of England, but dissatisfied
with that Church as it then existed in the colony, pe-
titioned the Colonial Committee of the Church of Scot-
land for a minister. It does not appear that any
Presbyterian minister had ever visited the colony before
this, except the Rev. Mr Nesbit, a highly-respected
missionary of the Pree Church. He touched there on

280 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

his way to India, and officiated in English in Mr Le
Brun's chapeL He appears to have made a profound
impression upon his audience, several of whom stiJl
speak of his earnest and impressive eloquence. The
Scotch congregation met in the Court-house, which
had been kindly conceded by the judges, till the be-
ginning of 1856, when they took possession of St
Andrew's Church, a handsome building in the early
Norman style. There is not a large number of Pres-
byterians in the colony, but there are good and useful
men amongst them, who take an active interest in the
spiritual welfare of the poorer classes. About twenty
natives of India were instructed in the elementary
truths of Christianity, and baptized by the founder of
the Scotch Church, who left the colony at the close of
1856.

There are three Associations, that have been recently
formed, in connexion with the Protestant Churches of
Mauritius, which deserve some notice. The Mauri-
tius Church Association was formed by Dr Chapman,
on the occasion of his visit to the colony in 1850. The
object of this association has been already mentioned.
It is supported exclusively by members of the Church
of England, and has contributed largely to the erection
of churches at Mah^bourg and Pamplemousses. Under
the able presidency of the present Bishop, it will, no
doubt, prove still more highly useful, and fully serve
the purpose for which it was instituted.

The Mauritius Auxiliary Branch of the British and
Foreign Bible Society was formed on the 25th of May

BIBLE SOCIETY. 281

1852, under the following circumstances. On the ar-
rival of the minister of the Church of Scotland in 1851,
he found that the supply of Scriptures which he had
brought with him was insufficient to meet the wants of
his own congregation, and that there was no place in
the colony where copies could be bought. Anxious to
remedy this state of things, he secured the co-operation
and assistance of several influential Protestants, and a
public meeting, the largest ever assembled in the co-
lony, was held in the Freemasons' Hall. Interesting
addresses were delivered by ministers and members of
the different Protestant Churches, an Auxiliary Branch
of the Bible Society was formed, and office-bearers
appointed. Copies of the Holy Scriptures, in French,
English, Chinese, and in all the diff'erent languages
spoken by the Indian immigrants, were procured, and
natives of Madagascar and India employed as colpor-
teurs. About 10,000 Scriptures, or portions of Scrip-
ture, have been sold or distributed among the inhabi-
tants, and the good effects produced by the reading of
the Word of God have been evidenced by the forma-
tion of one Creole and two Indian congregations, that
owe their existence to the labours of the Bible Society
and its agents. It would be difficult to over-estimate
the amount of good that has been effected by this truly
catholic Society, and it ought to be the earnest prayer
of all who are interested in the progress of divine truth,
that the Word of God, which is quick and powerful, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, may find its way
into every hamlet and cottage in this colony, and make

282 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

Mauritius resemble a garden of the^Lord, which,
watefeTTiy the Spirit, shall produce abundantly Jihe
peaceable fruits of righteousness.
" The"Beamen's Friend Society was formed .m. 1854,
for the purpose of ministering to the spiritual wants
of the 12,000 seamen who visit the harbour of Port
Louis every year. The arrival of Dr Eyan, and the
appointment of Mr Bichard as seamen's chaplain, su-
persede in a great measure, the necessity for. thfi.^-
ciety's operations, and the efforts of its members were
directed mainly to raising the funds required for open-
ing a Sailors' Home. The dens of infamy and crime,
in" which seamen who left their ships in Mauritius
were obliged to lodge, cannot be described, and the
arrival of Commodore Trotter, the officer commanding
at the Cape station in November 1856, was deemed a
favourable opportunity for calling upon all Christians
to unite in trying to provide a remedy for this great
and crying evil. An influential meeting was held, and a
large sum of money readily subscribed. The Govern-
ment agreed to pay from the Colonial Treasury a sum
equal to that raised by private subscription, and in this
way the funds necessary for opening a Sailors' Home
were soon raised. The services of a highly-respectable
man, well acquainted with the character and habits of
seamen, were secured as superintendent, and the sailors
have had the good sense to frequent the Home in pre-
ference to their former haunts, some of which have
been closed.

MADAGASCAR 283

CHAPTER VIII.

Madagascar, Description of— Mission of 1816— Progress of Christianity
—Death of King Radama in 1828— National Assembly of 1835—
Persecution of the Native Christians— Their Fortitude and Faith —
Attack on the Fort of Tamatave — The Queen's Answer to the Go-
vernor of Mauritius — Conversion of Prince Eakoto — Persecution of
1849 — Proclamation against Christianity — Martyrs in Madagascar
— Report of the Queen's Resignation— Visit of the Rev. W. Ellis
and Mr Cameron — Removal of Traffic between Madagascar and
Mauritius — The Queen's Letter — Church of Rome in Madagascar —
Report of a French Armament for the Invasion of the Island — Fresh
Persecution of the Christians — Conclusion.

In the course of this work, we have had frequent occa-
sion to allude to the neighbouring island of Madagascar,
between which and Mauritius the most intimate rela-
tions have existed, and a brief notice of the persecutions
of the native Christians by the present queen may not
be out of place. Many of these men have found refuge
in Mauritius, and two of them were highly useful as
colpoHeurs among the Creole population. The follow-
ing statement is derived chiefly from a small work
published at the Cape by Mr Cameron, who spent many
years as a lay missionary in Madagascar, before the ex-
pulsion of the Christian teachers, and who again visited
the island in 1853.

Madagascar is a large island, about 900 miles long
by 300 broad, situated opposite the mouth of the Zam-

284 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

besi, the river recently explored by the indefatigable
Livingstone, and separated from the mainland by the
Mozambique Channel. It is inhabited by two distinct
races, the one of Arab, the other of Negro origin. The
capital, Antananarivo, is situated in a district called
Ankova, near the centre of the island. In this city, a
mission connected with the London Missionary Society
was established in 1818, with the consent and approval
of Radama, the king. A grammar and dictionary of the
native language were compiled ; schools were opened
in the different villages; native youths instructed in
Christianity by the missionaries, who preached the
gospel from place to place ; and in 1826 a printing-
press was erected. Thousands learned to read, and the
seed seemed to have fallen in a propitious soil. But
persecution has ever followed in the wake of Christian-
ity. The old saying, that " the blood of the martyrs
is the seed of the Church,'' was to hold true here as
elsewhere. Radama died in ^ 828, a heathen, favourable
to Christianity only because he considered Christianity
favourable to the development of the resources of the
country and of the intellect of his subjects. The queen,
his successor, for two years tolerated Christianity, which
made rapid progress, especially among the lower classes.
The jealousy of the old heathen Conservative party was
excited, and their influence employed with the queen to
suppress Christianity. On the 1st of March 1835, a
sort of National Assembly was held, at which it was
resolved that Christianity should be extirpated, and the
profession of it treated as a capital crime. The seeds

FIRST MAETYES. 285

of Cliristianity had taken too deep root, however, to be
eradicated so easily. Many knew in whom they had
trusted, and felt that they ought to obey God rather
than man. Several were condemned to imprisonment
and slavery, immediately after the National Assembly
of 1835, though none actually suffered death till 1837.
The first martyr was one of that sex who were the last
at the cross, the first at the sepulchre. She walked to
the place of execution singing hymns, and met her fate
with Christian fortitude. One only of her fellow-Chris-
tians accompanied her to her place of martyrdom. Her
example decided him in the profession of the Christian
faith, and he suffered soon after. This man's wife was
then seized and tortured, along with another person,
till they disclosed the names of the principal Christians.
Most of these concealed themselves in places inacces-
sible to the queen's forces, and six of them, aided by
their friends, reached Tamatave, the principal sea-port,
and escaped to Mauritius. Those who remained were
exposed to great hardships, and an attempt was made
in 1842, by a missionary of the name of Griffiths, who
had returned to the island, to effect their escape. Every
arrangement was made. Two natives well acquainted
with the country were to conduct them to Tamatave,
from which they could escape to Mauritius. When
one-half of the journey was completed, their conductors
betrayed them into the hands of the queen's troops, and
nine of them were put to death in the most barbarous
and revolting manner. Mr Griffiths, the missionary,
was compelled to leave the island immediately.

286 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

After this period, there seems to have been a cessa-
tion for some time in the persecution of the native
Christians. The fate of their companions had rendered
them more cautious. At the same time their thirst for
the Word of God continued as ardent as before. New
Testaments were supplied at times through vessels
trading between Tamatave and Mauritius. This trade,
however, was interrupted by an unfortunate and un-
successful attack made by one English and two French
ships of war upon the native fort at Tamatave. In the
beginning of 1845, the queen had published a procla-
mation, to the effect that all foreigners remaining in
the island after a certain specified time, would become
subject to the laws of the country. In making this
proclamation, she only exercised a right which belongs
to every independent sovereign. The commanders of
the vessels alluded to tried in vain to obtain some re-
laxation of this law in favour of their countrymen
resident in the island. They then opened a severe fire
on the fort, and after cannonading it for several hours,
they landed and endeavoured to take possession of it.
They were repulsed with considerable loss, and the
bodies of the slain were decapitated, and their heads
insultingly stuck upon poles. There was a touch of
savage grandeur in the queen's reply to a remonstrance
from the Governor of Mauritius : — " Each of all the
kings of the earth has had his land apportioned to him
by God, and each rules his own land in his own way.
Our queen attempts not to rule your queen, and your
queen must not attempt to rule ours."" After this

THE IDOL EAMAHAVALY. 287

unfortunate affair, all exportation of produce from the
island was strictly prohibited, and little was known of
the condition of the native Christians, . save through
letters occasionally received by their friends in Mauri-
tius, or through fugitives to the same place. The ways
of God in promoting His truth are very wonderful. In
the apostolic age, Christianity found its way into the
palaces of Rome through the medium of slaves, who
instructed their heathen masters. Something like this
occurred also at Madagascar. God wanted a protector
for these poor Christians, and He chose the son of their
persecutor. Eakoto, the queen's only son, was in-
structed in Christianity by one of the Christians who
held office in the palace, and made an open profession
of his faith. He was induced to do this by the follow-
ins sinc!:ular circumstance. He had been told that
neither the idol Ramahavaly nor the temple which con-
tained it could be consumed with fire, and repeated this
remark within the hearing of his Christian instructor.
Both were speedily reduced to ashes. The prince wit-
nessed the fire from the balcony of his house, and from
that time renounced idolatry. The prince soon after
succeeded in gaining over to the truth a son of the
queen's sister, named Ramouja, a man of great influ-
ence at the court, and both have ever since continued
to protect the Christians. A brother of Ramouja's,
named Rambosalama, the adopted son of the queen,
before the birth of Rakoto, remained violently opposed
to Christianity. He seems to have taken an active part
in instigating the queen to begin that severe persecution

288 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

which was undertaken against Christianity in 1849.
The houses used as places of worship were destroyed,
and several of the principal Christians apprehended.
Those who confessed, and promised to renounce the
truth, were either pardoned or condemned to pay certain
fines, while those who adhered to the truth, were put
to death, chiefly by being hurled from a precipice.
Christianity was prohibited in the following terms : —
" There are things which shall not be done, saith the
queen. The saying to others, Believe and obey the
Gospel ; the practice of baptism ; the keeping of the
Sabbath as a day of rest ; the refusing to swear by
one's father, or mother, or sister, or brother, and the
refusing to be sworn, with a stubbornness like that of
bullocks, or stones, or wood; the taking of a little
bread and of the juice of the grape, and the asking a
blessing to rest on the crown of your head ; and kneel-
ing down upon the ground and praying, and rising
from prayer with drops of water falling from your
noses, and with tears rolling down your eyes.'' What
an affecting picture of the administration of the Lord's
Supper in that remote island ! It will remind the reader
of Pliny the younger's description of the manners and
customs of the Christians in his province, or of the
Scottish Covenanters kneeling on the mountain heather,
and partaking of the sacred elements beside some soli-
tary lake, far from the pursuit of their persecutors.

Nearly two thousand persons confessed themselves
to be Christians. All of these were punished in their
persons or properties, and fourteen were put to death

THE VICTORY THAT OVEECOMETH THE WORLD. 289

in the following manner : — They were carried to the
top of a rock, where criminals guilty of capital crimes
were wont to be conducted, before being precipitated to
the bottom. Persons guilty of the vilest offences were
associated with them, so as to degrade them in the eyes
of their countrymen, and cast ridicule upon their reli-
gion. Each in succession was suspended by a rope over
the fearful precipice, and life offered to him if he would
recant ; but they all deemed it better to depart and to
be with Christ. Some of these devoted men seem, like
Stephen, to have been favoured with such glimpses of the
Redeemer's glory as filled their souls with transports of
holy joy, and led them to welcome death as the greatest
boon. Their dying words made a deep and lasting
impression upon their countrymen. Only one young
woman, who had been a favourite of the queen's, was
spared. She was placed in a prominent position from
which she could witness the deaths of her companions
in succession, and it is reported by some that her
resolution failed her so that she renounced Christianity,
by others, that the queen extended to her a free pardon,
without any such recantation. In the course of the
same year 184)9, eighteen other persons were put to
death on account of their adherence to Christianity,
their property confiscated, and their families reduced to
a state of slavery. But they " counted all things but loss
for the knowledge of Christ and Him crucified." With
a spirit similar to that which animated the early mar-
tyrs, they were prepared to endure all, and to give up
all, rather than renounce that Saviour whose precious

T

290 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

blood had cleansed them from all sin. And thus
" they overcame by the blood of the Lamb.'^

A large quantity of New Testaments and portions of
Scripture in Malagashe, published by the British and
Foreign Bible Society, had been entrusted to the care
of the Rev. J. Le Brun at Port Louis, in the expectation
that some opening might present itself for the intro-
duction of them into Madagascar. From 1845 to 1853,
only a few opportunities occurred of introducing small
quantities of Scriptures into Madagascar. The few
Frenchmen who had been allowed to remain in the
island were opposed to the introduction of the Bible
and the return of the missionaries, because these were
opposed to their licentious and sinful lives. In Mau-
ritius also, any attempt at Christianising Madagascar
would meet with little favour, because the queen's
prohibition of all foreign trade was erroneously im-
puted to her jealousy or dislike of the missionaries. A
fugitive from Madagascar was employed in 1852 to
convey Scriptures to his countrymen who still adhered
to Christianity, but information of his design was given
to the authorities, and such a strict surveillance ob-
served, that he was obliged to return without having
effected his purpose. The same year, rumours reached
England from Mauritius, to the effect that the queen,
who has been for many years the slave of intemperate
habits, had resigned the crown in favour of her son
Eakoto, who had proclaimed toleration to Christianity
throughout his dominions. In consequence of these
rumours, the Rev. W. Ellis and Mr Cameron, residing

MEMORIAL TO THE QUEEN. 291

at Caj^e Town, both formerly connected with the Mission
to Madagascar, were sent to Mauritius, to examine into
their truth. The result was not satisfactory, but they
resolved to visit Madagascar, and arrived at Tamatave
in the month of July. They discovered through a
native convert, who introduced himself to their notice,
that the persecution of 1849 had failed to extirpate
Christianity, there being still about 800 persons in the
neighbourhood of the capital who adhered to it, and a
church, containing about sixty members, regularly or-
ganised. Few copies of the Scriptures had escaped the
search made for them in 1 849, but these had been pre-
served with a carefulness that shewed how highly they
were appreciated. A New Testament was exhibited by
Mr Ellis, after his return to Mauritius. It was so
much soiled, and worn, and patched, that it was diffi-
cult to recognise the original work, and the sight of it
might have touched the hearts of many careless profes-
sors of religion, who neglect their Bibles, with a feeling
of shame. It is now, we believe, at the depot of the
British and Foreign Bible Society in London. In
June 1 853, a memorial, signed by the members of the
Chamber of Commerce at Port Louis and others, was
transmitted to the Queen of Madagascar, petitioning
that the ports of that island might be re-opened for
foreign trade, and the friendly relations formerly exist-
ing between the two places renewed. This memorial
was conveyed to Madagascar in July, and imme-
diately received the following gracious reply from the
queen : —

292 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

" Antananarivo, July 1853.
"To P. A. Wiehe, Esq., President of the Chamber of
Commerce, and to Davy and Robinson, and Jamet,
and all their associates.

" I am to inform you that I am in possession of the
letter written by you in June 1853 to the Queen of
Madagascar. Also that I have made known to the
Queen of Madagascar the words (or contents) of your
letter.

" And this is the reason why commerce is closed,
and that you have to ask that traffic may be re-opened :
Romain Desfosses and Wm. Kelly, and their com-
panions, in three ships, on a former occasion fired
guns upon us, intending to take our country, and this
made us extremely angry.

" Now, when they make a payment of 15,000 dollars
for injury done, commerce will be re-opened. Por
those who attacked us are not people unknown, but
people that came from the English and Prench. And
further, any others may pay that sum, if the payment
be made as coming from (or for) them, — and even in
that case commerce will be re-opened.

" And I beg to tell you plainly, that, whether com-
merce be re-opened or remain closed, we have no enemies
beyond the sea, for all that are there are our relatives
and friends. — Parewell, &c., says

Ramikietaka,

13th Honor, and Officer of the Palace."

On receiving this answer, which in clearness and
brevity might serve as a model to be imitated by Euro-

EEPORT OF A FEENCH INVASION. 293

pean diplomatists, the Chamber of Commerce soon
collected the amount demanded, and Mr Cameron and
another person were employed to convey it to the
queen. They were successful in their mission, and re-
turned to Mauritius in November with a cargo of
bullocks. The trade between the two colonies has con-
tinued ever since, but no opening has yet been pre-
sented for the introduction of the Word of God on a
large scale, or the resumption of missionary labour.
The French have an establishment on Nosse Bay, and
priests connected with the Roman Catholic Mission to
the eastern coast of Africa, have endeavoured to obtain
a footing in the island, and to win over the native
Christians to Romanism, by representing their system
as identical with that in which they had been instructed
by the missionaries. They signally failed, however,
in this attempt. " To the law and to the testimony,''
was the motto of these primitive men, and as the tenets
of Romanism were found irreconcileable with the teach-
ings of the Bible, they were at once rejected. The
French have always been anxious, since theu* colonisa-
tion of Mauritius and Bourbon, to establish themselves
permanently in Madagascar. Soon after the conclusion
of the Crimean war, it was reported that the Emperor
of France was about to fit out a large armament for the
subjugation of this island. The report probably was
connected with the return to France of a French mer-
chant established at Mauritius, and largely connected
with the Madagascar trade, who visited the island, and
had an interview with the young prince Rakoto. This

294 CEEOLES AND COOLIES.

prince lives in daily apprehension of a violent deatli at
the hands of the queen's adopted son, to whom allusion
has already been made, as a violent opponent of Christi-
anity. It is related by Mr Cameron, that about six
months before his visit to the island, Elakoto purchased
a quantity of red cloth, such as is often used to wrap
the bodies of the royal dead. " The queen asked him
what he meant by purchasing such cloth ? He said to
her that he considered his life in danger from a quarter
which she well knew, and that if he must die in such
a way, he would prefer dying while she was yet alive.
She only said, ' My Rakoto, what makes you say so ? ' '*
This extract from Mr Cameron's narrative, published
at Cape Town in 185 4, will shew that the prince was
then apprehensive of a violent death. The Frenchman
to whom we allude, seems to have worked upon his fears
till he induced him to write a letter to the Emperor of
France, requesting him to take the island of Madagascar
under his protection, and to establish Christianity.
This letter was delivered to the Emperor, and soon
after the report originated that an army was to be
fitted out for the invasion of Madagascar. As yet no
attempt had been made, and if made, it is doubtful
whether it would be successful. The Malagashes are
a brave and warlike race, possessed of great physical
strength and powers of endurance. The interior of
the island abounds in mountains and inaccessible forests,
which cavalry and artillery could never pierce. A
recent fact shews that the authorities are extremely
jealous of any attempt, on the part of any foreign

^ FRENCH PERSECUTION. 295

power, to obtain a permanent footing in the colony.
A French firm in Mauritius obtained permission to
work a coal mine in Madagascar. For self -protection,
they built a small fort, and had the temerity to display
the French flag upon it. The authorities commanded
them to remove it, and on their refusal, a party of
native soldiers destroyed the fort, and several of its
defenders were slain. The Malagashe authorities had
undoubtedly justice on their side. The French' had no
more right to build a fort and to display their flag in
Madagascar, than they would have to do so in Mauri-
tius. The attempt in either case would be suppressed,
and the guilty parties punished, without exciting any
sjnnpathy.

The Kev. W. Ellis re-visited Madagascar towards the
close of 1856, but it does not yet appear that his visit
produced any good eff'ect, or has been followed with
any important result. It is a pleasant sight to see
this devoted missionary, who is now well advanced in
years, ready to renounce all the comforts of civilised
life, to undertake a voyage of many thousand miles,
and to expose himself to death in a heathen land, not
from the desire of fame or of personal aggrandise-
ment, but in obedience to the command of his Master,
"Go ye and preach the gospel unto aU nations."
Accounts have recently reached this country that a
fresh persecution of the native Christians has broken
out in Madagascar, and that about fifty of tliem have
been put to death. All who are interested in the
evangelisation of the heathen, and the establishment

296 CREOLES AND COOLIES.

of Christ's kingdom on earth, should be earnest in
their prayers, that this island, now the habitation of
cruelty, may soon be brought within the pale of His
Church, and that religious toleration and deliverance
from persecution may be extended to those who have
retained their adhesion to Christianity, amid trials and
sufferings unequalled in the annals of the Church since
the persecutions of the early Christians by the Roman
Emperors.

THE END.

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