Port Louis

“ From Calcutta and China, Ceylon and Madras, Pondicherry, London, Marseilles, the Cape, Callao and Bordeaux, and from many a port besides, vessels of all varieties of rig and tonnage come hither.
In the daytime, as I now see it for the first time, Port Louis is indeed a crowded and busy place, and its low-pitched warehouses and unpretending-looking buildings hold many and many thousand tons of miscellaneous merchandise coming in or going out. ”

“ This spot is nearly in the centre of the island, and upon the road from Port Louis to Port Bourbon. It was here that the man lamented by the good and well informed of all nations,—whom science illumined, and humanity, joined to an honest ambition, conducted to the haunts of remote savages,—in this spot he once dwelt, perhaps little known to the world, but happy ”

“ In the beginning of the 18th century it was the chief port on the Clyde, but has since been surpassed by Greenock and Glasgow itself. There are shipbuilding, iron and brass founding industries, and extensive timber ponds.
Port Louis (62) , capital of Mauritius, on the NW. coast; is the chief port of the colony, with an excellent harbour, and contains the British government buildings, a Protestant and a Roman Catholic cathedral, barracks, and military store-houses. It is a naval coaling-station. ”

“ Port William is much more easy of access from its situation near the eastern extreme point of the island (Cape Pembroke) , so that ships are almost immediately in harbour after making the land, and as immediately at sea, clear of all dangers on leaving the harbour; whereas to gain Port Louis they have usually to beat twelve or thirteen miles against the prevailing winds, a serious objection, so far as merchant or disabled vessels are concerned. ”

“ As I knew the French force in Port Louis consisted of three heavy frigates and a fine corvette ready for sea, and if the former squadron joined them, they would be far too strong for the Sirius, Iphigenia, and Magicienne, then blockading that port and Black River, though my anchorage was only supported by four guns (two of those upon open platforms, and only meant to protect the landing place against boats,) I felt it my duty to use every means to draw the enemy into Grand Port ”

“ By the time we had been three days at sea, the captain began to resume his bad habits, and of course the mate followed his example. The voyage was comparatively short, so they took care not to lose their senses altogether, and were tolerably sober when we came in sight of the Mauritius.
I had never seen anything more beautiful than the scenery of Port Louis harbour. High above the town rises La Pouce, or the thumb mountain, clothed with trees to its very top. It forms one of an amphitheatre of queer-shaped mountains, at the foot of which nestles comfortably the capital of the island. ”

“ In the first instance, however, before I knew that I had a single friend upon the island, I had taken up my quarters at the Hotel d’ ——, which had the reputation of being then, as it possibly may have the reputation of being now, the best in Port Louis.
I like these tropical hotels. No heated, close coffee-rooms, permeated with that indescribable flavour, towards the support of which an unceasing contribution has been levied on the animal and vegetable kingdoms for, it may be, a quarter of a century. ”

“ Pamplemousses is a small village about seven miles from Port Louis, and the road to it is lined by rows of tamarind trees, of cocoanut trees, and sugarcanes. I started early in the morning in order to avoid the great heat of the middle of the day, and having breakfasted at Port Louis, made an early couple of hours' walk of it, meeting on my way numbers of the coloured population hastening to market in all the varieties of their curious Hindoo costume. After some trouble I found my way to the "Tombeaux" as they call them. ”

“ Blavet was situated at the mouth of the River Blavet, on the southern coast of Brittany. Its occupation had been granted to the Spanish by the Duke de Mercoeur during the civil war, and, with other places held by the Spanish, was surrendered by the treaty of Vervins, in June, 1598. It was rebuilt and fortified by Louis XIII, and is now known as Port Louis. ”

“ The rest of those whom we left at Port Louis, never having done anything to entitle them to remembrance, we neither know nor care what has become of them, with the exception of our late fourth mate, who deserves mention singly on account of his utter uselessness. From the same source, we learn that he shipped, and left Mauritius in the barque Eagle, as boatsteerer. In this new position he will, no doubt, act with about as much credit to himself, and receive as unenviable a name and reputation, as he did among us. ”

“ And now that we have pretty thoroughly analyzed the city and its suburbs, it is quite time that we should speak of the tawny inhabitants of Port Louis. Having mentioned the whites, we will first glance at those who most nearly resemble them in color and form: the Arabs—a fine-looking, large and symmetrically built race of men, who wear the turban, a white robe, and sandals, of the same form as did their ancestors in time immemorial. They are a very intelligent-looking people, with perfectly regular features, grave in deportment, respected, and reputed wealthy. Most of them are merchants. ”

“ An apology for wind gets up at last, which takes us round the north end of the island, and we creep up to the outer anchorage of Port Louis, on its western shore, slowly but safely in that darkest hour before dawn.
Bad news travels fast, they say, and some one actually took the trouble of getting out of his bed and rowing out to us as soon as our anchor was down to tell us, with apparently great satisfaction, that we had lost our race, and that we should have to go into quarantine with the earliest dawn. ”

“ During my stay at Port Louis I received much hospitality, particularly from the family of Colonel Staveley, Commander of the Forces, which I take this opportunity of acknowledging.
We sailed from the Mauritius on the 10th of June, and on the following day passed about 20 miles south-east of the Island of Bourbon. It resembles a large cone emerging from the water; and its features are strikingly different from those of the Mauritius; the outline is not softened by luxuriant vegetation, but is sudden and steep and massive. ”

“ The Mauritius is one of the most flourishing of England’s dependencies, and the French inhabitants seem perfectly contented with her rule, and appreciate the numerous advantages they possess from being under it. Since the abolition of slavery, coolies have been brought over to cultivate sugar, rice, tobacco, and to engage in other labours, formerly performed by the negro slaves. Port Louis is a well-built town, and has a bustling and gay appearance, from the number of traders from all parts of the East, who appear in their various and picturesque costumes. ”

“ France, deprived of her navy and her colonies, is stripped of half her splendor and of a great part of her strength. Louisiana can indemnify us for all our losses. There does not exist on the globe a single port, a single city, susceptible of becoming as important as New Orleans, and the neighborhood of the American States already makes it one of the most commercial in the world. The Mississippi does not reach there until it has received twenty other rivers, most of which surpass in size the finest rivers of Europe. ”

“ Saint Louis is but a halting place in the middle of the river, where merchants who were going up it to seek slaves and gum, moored their vessels, and deposited their provisions, and the goods they had brought with them to barter.
What is said in the narrative of the means of attacking this port, is correct. When the enemy have appeared, the Negroes have always been those who have defended it with the most effect. But unhappily, there, as in the Antilles, persons are already to be found, who are inclined to hold out their hands to the English. ”

“ There is at present a settlement of about a thousand people around the harbor, mainly engaged in the fisheries. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 transferred Newfoundland and Acadia from France to England, but the French held Cape Breton Island, and many of their refugees came hither. It was not long before the French King, Louis XIV., stirred by Admiral Walker's proclamation and anxious about Canada, determined to fortify the "English Port" and make a commercial depot there, and in 1714 the plan was laid out, the name being changed to Louisbourg. ”

“ Louis is insufferably and noxiously hot; scarcely any one but the slaves could be induced to remain there, the free inhabitants departing for the interior. Then again, the dry months at Port St. Louis are the rainy ones in the central parts; and, whilst the fiercest hurricanes are raging on the coast, a few miles in-land all is calm and sunshine. I have repeatedly witnessed this; and it is strange in so small an island."
"De Ruyter now came up, and we suddenly stood on the elevated plain, called Vacois, in the centre of the island. ”

“ African and Eastern races predominate; descendants of French settlers and Europeans number 110,000; discovered by the Portuguese in 1510, they abandoned it 90 years later; the Dutch held it for 112 years, and abandoned it in turn; occupied by the French in 1721, it was captured by Britain in 1810, and is now, with some other islands, a crown colony, under a governor and council. Port Louis (62) , on the NW., is the capital, and a British naval coaling station.
Maury, Abbé, born in Vaucluse, son of a shoemaker; came to Paris, and became celebrated as a preacher ”

“ The green plain has an inviting look; has scattering dwellings nestling among the greenery. Scene of the sentimental adventure of Paul and Virginia.
Island under French control—which means a community which depends upon quarantines, not sanitation, for its health.
Thursday, April 16. Went ashore in the forenoon at Port Louis, a little town, but with the largest variety of nationalities and complexions we have encountered yet. French, English, Chinese, Arabs, Africans with wool, blacks with straight hair, East Indians, half-whites, quadroons—and great varieties in costumes and colors. ”

“ Louis, and I had visions of returning to Kentucky and, amid the acclaims of our fellow-citizens, announcing that Captain Clarke, assisted by his young kinsman, had succeeded in convincing the Spanish governor Delassus of the wrongs inflicted upon American commerce by the unjust interdiction; that Delassus [Pg 20] had thereupon remonstrated with the intendant at New Orleans, and, as a result, the river was thrown open to the Gulf, and a port of deposit granted on the Isle of New Orleans where our merchants might store the goods they brought down the river for sale. ”

“ When the Port Royal settlement was broken up, he crossed over to the mouth of the Penobscot, and held a station there until the year 1626, when he was driven out by an expedition from New England. Biencourt appears to have died either in Acadia or in France about the year 1623, and the younger La Tour became the foremost man among the French settlers, holding a small fort near Cape Sable, which seems to have been known by various names—Fort Louis, Fort l'Omeroy or Lomeron, and Fort or Port Latour. ”

“ However, the royal vessel got off the shoal, and went on its way; on the 8th of July, after sailing for ten weeks more, the King and all his fleet reached the port of Hyères in Provence, which then belonged to the Empire and not to France. {97} For two days Louis refused to disembark, as he was most anxious on his return to set foot for the first time on the soil of his own land at Aiguesmortes, from whence he had set out six years previously. ”

“ In pursuing the same route and the same coast westward, the lands are still the same, quite to the small Bay of St. Louis, and to the Channels, which lead to the lake of that name. At a distance from the sea the earth is of a good quality, fit for agriculture; as being a light soil, but something gravelly. The coast to the north of the Bay of St. Louis is of a different nature, and much more fertile. The lands at a greater distance to the north of this last coast, are not very distant from the Missisippi; they are also much more fruitful than those to the cast of this bay in the same latitude. ”

“ We read of buccaneers and filibusters; of Morgan, the last of the tribe, knighted and made Vice-Governor of Jamaica; of the doings of the redoubtable Kidd; of the bloodiness of Blackbeard; of the countless list of names, some high-sounding, which at last were painted in crimson splashes on the gallows slip at Port Royal headland. Port Royal itself deserves a niche in the temple of fame. The richest and the most vicious town the world ever knew; so it was before the clean ocean washed away its vice and corruption, and buried it deep in the pure water of the blue Caribbean. ”

“ The south coast of Louisiana lies on our right, cut by a thousand bays and channels deep enough for hiding a pinnace or even a stout schooner. Yonder, Jean, is Barataria Bay, your old home. Here, under my finger, is Côte Blanche. Here comes the Chafalay, through its new channel—all this floating hyacinth, all this red water, comes from Texas soil, from the Red River, now discharging in new mouths. Yonder, west of the main boat channels that make toward the railways far inland, lie the salt reefs and the live-oak islands. Here is the long key they now call Marsh Island. ”

“ Another island has therefore been acquired, to which the superflux of the population will be sent, with the view of forming a new colony. That of Isle St. Louis contains a civilized, humane, gentle, and economical people, who are consequently happy. The men are tall, well made, ardent, courageous, sober, and indefatigable; they possess a robust constitution, are uncommonly faithful; and have a noble gait and physiognomy. Indeed it is impossible to find more attentive or sincere domestics; as they carry to extremities their affection for those who have done them any service. ”