Items related to Descriptive account of Mauritius; its scenery, statistics...
Descriptive account of Mauritius; its scenery, statistics &c with brief historical sketch - Softcover
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1858 Excerpt: ...of fearful convulsions of nature to which the island had at one time been subjected, probably long before the foot of man had trodden its soil. In these fire, doubtless, was the chief agent. In several districts immense rocks that never have been moved by the hand of man, are split asunder--as at Roc en Roc at Mapou, their corresponding parts lying opposite to, but at a distance from each other. The singular formation of several of the mountains of the island also strikes the attention, while subterranean streams, numerous caverns, calcined rocks and stones, deep cavities, seemingly craters of extinct volanoes, and masses of lava that continually meet the sight, are indications of too conclusive a kind to leave the matter in doubt. The Ground Bassin, which is supposed to be the crater of an extinct volcano, is situated among the mountains in the north of the district of Savanne at an elevation of two thousand feet above the sea. Its distance from Port Louis, is about twenty seven miles; and from the village of Souillac, nine miles. Although the elevation of the crater, now filled with water, is considerable, wooded heights still more elevated, partly surround it. From these, it receives the tribute of many streams; streams that in the rainy season, quickly swell into rivers, and these into floods, rendering it, at such times, unsafe to be visited. On leaving the mainroad, the path leading to the Bassin gradually ascends through a forest of indigenous trees of every age and height, around the trunks, and hanging from the branches of many of which are creepers of gigantic size. This forest is traversed by numerous limpid streams on whose rocky banks, "the stag at eve" has often " drunk his fill", and which, sparkling and murmuring, cross a...
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