from the top embraces the greater part of this fine island. The coral
reef fringing the shores is well seen--the pale green of the shoal water
is separated from the deep blue of the ocean by a line of snow-white
surf.

THE CEMETERY.

For entomological purposes I frequently visited the Cemetery, numbers of
insects being attracted by its flowers and trees. The road leading to it,
one of the principal evening drives, is shaded by rows of magnificent
casuarinas, from Madagascar. Some five or six widely-separated religious
creeds may each here be seen practising their peculiar modes of
interment--Chinese, Mahomedan, Hindoo, and Christian; and among the last
it was a novelty to me to observe, for the first time, the pleasing
custom of decking the graves with fresh flowers, often renewed weekly for
years, disposed in jars of various kinds, from the richly ornamented vase
down to the humblest piece of crockery. All the low land hereabouts has
been borrowed from the sea; it is a mixture of sand and fragments of
coral; and the land-crabs have established a colony in one part of the
cemetery, and run riot among the graves.

Although well aware of the productiveness of this fine island in marine
objects, I was yet unprepared for the sight of upwards of one hundred
species of fish, which I frequently witnessed of a morning in the market
at Port Louis; but this to me was diminished by the regret that the most
skilful taxidermist would signally fail, either to retain upon the
prepared skin, or to reproduce, the bright colours for which so many of
them are remarkable. Dredging in the harbour was perfectly unsuccessful;
outside the margin of the coral reefs which fringe the entrance to Port
Louis one finds a zone of loose blocks of living Maeandrinae, Astraeae,