Les Tombeaux are situated in a garden surrounded by trees, and a grove of
coffee plants, behind the residence of a gentleman who must be heartily
sick of being so constantly disturbed by strangers. They exhibit nothing
more remarkable than two dilapidated monumental urns on opposite sides of
the garden, shaded by a clump of bamboos and casuarinas, the latter
usually mistaken for cypresses. In the coffee plantation close by, I was
delighted to find great numbers of a large and handsome land shell,
Achatina mauritiana--it burrows in the earth during dry weather, but some
rain which had fallen during the night brought it out in abundance.

BOTANICAL GARDENS.

The Botanical Gardens are close to the church. Among the plants are some
magnificent sago palms, almost rivalling those I had seen in New Guinea,
during the voyage of the Fly,* and many clove and nutmeg trees, the
cultivation of which in the island it had been the intention of
Government to introduce. Here are some very fine shady walks with ponds
of water and rivulets, but although these cool retreats are admirably
adapted for solitary rambles and the holding of merry picnic parties, I
found with regret that the title of botanical had misled me.

On my return I was not surprised to see in an island colonised by the
French--so little outward respect paid to the Sabbath. Many people were
at work in the fields, and washerwomen in the streams--a party of
Chinamen were employed roofing a house, and blacksmiths hammered away
within gun-shot of the church, while many of the shops and all the
taverns were open in the villages.

(*Footnote. Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.S. Fly in Torres
Strait, New Guinea, and other Islands of the Asiatic Archipelago by J.