ate of preparation for general De Caen; and when completed, and the
gardens, alleys, fish ponds, and roads put into order, it would be an
elegant residence for the governor of the island. Our inspection was
confined to the gardens and prospects, from the house being shut up; we
afterwards made a rural dinner under the shade of a banian tree, and my
friend Pitot, with M. Bayard, a judge in the court of appeal, then
separated from their families to conduct me onward to my asylum.

Instead of taking the direct road, they pursued a winding route more to
the eastward, to pay a visit to M. Plumet, a friend of the judge; and we
reached his habitation not much before sunset, though still four or five
miles short of our destination. Thus far I found the country to be stony
and not very fertile, the roads bad and irregular, with several places in
them which must be impracticable in the heavy rains; here and there,
however, we were gratified with the view of country houses, surrounded
with fruit trees and well watered gardens; and once turned out of the
road to see a water fall made by a considerable stream down a precipice
of at least a hundred feet. The cultivated fields seemed to be generally
planted either with sugar cane, maize, or manioc, but we were often in
the shade of the primitive woods.

M. Plumet had passed many years in India, in the service of Scindeah, the
Mahratta chief, and spoke some English; he received us so kindly that we
remained with him until the following afternoon, and his habitation being
within my limits, he invited me to visit him afterwards. From the time of
quitting the port we had been continually ascending; so that here the
elevation was probably not less than a thousand feet, and the climate and
productions were much altered. Coffee seemed to be a great object of
attention, and there were some rising plantations of clove trees; I found
also strawberries, and even a few young oaks of tolerable growth. A vast
advantage, as well as ornament in this and many other parts of the
island, is the abundance of never failing streams; by which the gardens
are embellished with cascades and fish ponds, and their fruit trees and
vegetables watered at little expense.

Quitting M. Plumet in the afternoon of the 26th, we rode in intricate
paths and crossed various plantations to get into the direct road. In
these, besides sugar cane, coffee, maize, and manioc, some fields were
totally covered with a creeping plan