ith
increasing force; it then shifted quickly to north-east, north,
north-west, and on the third evening was at W. S. W., where it gradually
subsided. This was not so violent as the first hurricane, but the rain
fell in torrents, and did great mischief to the land, besides destroying
such remaining part of the crops as were at all in an advanced state: at
Bourbon it did not do much injury, the former, it was said, having left
little to destroy. The wind had now completed the half of the compass
which it wanted in the first hurricane; and the unfortunate planters were
left to repair their losses without further dread for this year: maize
and manioc, upon which the slaves are principally fed, rose two hundred
per cent.

An opinion commonly entertained in Mauritius, that hurricanes are little
to be apprehended except near the time of full moon, does not seem to be
well founded. In 1805 indeed, there was a heavy gale on April 14 and 15,
a few days after the full; but the first of the two hurricanes
abovementioned took place a day or two before the new moon, and the
middle of the second within twenty-four hours of the last quarter; whence
it should appear that the hurricanes have no certain connexion with the
state of this planet. January, February, and March are the months which
excite the most dread, and December and April do not pass without
apprehension; for several years, however, previously to 1805, no
hurricane had been experienced; and the inhabitants began to hope, that
if the clearing of the country caused a dearth of rain at some times of
the year, it would also deliver them from these dreadful scourges; for it
was to the destruction of the woods that the dryness of preceding years
and the cessation of hurricanes were generally attributed.

On the 21st, His Majesty's ship Russel came off the island upon a cruise,
and chased into Port Louis La Piemontaise, a French frigate which had
sailed from Europe in December. By this opportunity a confirmation of
some, and an account of other victories gained over the Austrians were
received, as also of the great naval action off Cape Trafalgar; the
bulletins of the former were inserted in the gazette of the island, but
except a report from the officers of Le Redoubtable, not a word of the
naval action; amidst such events as these, the misfortunes of an
individual must be very striking to occupy even a thought.

In a visit to M. Plumet, and to M. Airolles, the proprietor of