character. A short distance above their junction, each branch takes a
leap downward of about seventy feet; and when united, they do not run
above a quarter of a mile northward before they descend with redoubled
force a precipice of nearly one hundred and twenty feet; there are then
one or two small cascades, and in a short distance another of eighty or a
hundred feet; and from thence to the bottom of the valley, the descent is
made by smaller cascades and numberless rapids. After the united stream
has run about half a mile northward, and in that space descended near a
thousand feet from the level of Vacouas, the river turns west; and
passing through the deep cut or chasm in the boundary ridge, enters the
plain of Le Tamarin and winds in a serpentine course to the sea.

The R. du Tamarin is at no time a trifling stream, and in rainy weather
the quantity of water thrown down the cascades is considerable; by a
calculation from the estimated width, depth, and rate of the current
after a hurricane, the water then precipitated was 1500 tons in a minute.
There are some points on the high land whence most of the cascades may be
seen at one view, about a mile distant; from a nearer point some of them
are perceived to the left, the Trois Mamelles tower over the woods to the
right, and almost perpendicularly under foot is the impetuous stream of
the river, driving its way amongst the rocks and woods at the bottom of
the valley. In front is the steep gap, through which the river rushes to
the low land of Le Tamarin; and there the eye quits it to survey the
sugar plantations, the alleys of tamarinds and mangoes, the villages of
huts, and all the party-coloured vegetation with which that district is
adorned; but soon it passes on to the Baye du Tamarin, to the breakers on
the coral reefs which skirt the shore, and to the sea expanded out to a
very distant horizon. An elevation of ten or eleven hundred feet, and the
distance of three or four miles which a spectator is placed from the
plantations, gives a part of this view all the softness of a
well-finished drawing; and when the sun sets in front of the gap, and
vessels are seen passing before it along the coast, nothing seems wanting
to complete this charming and romantic prospect.

Amongst the natural curiosities of Mauritius may be reckoned the _Mare
aux Vacouas_, situate about two miles S. by E. of the Refuge. It is an
irregular piece of fresh water of about one mile in length, s