I by no means intend to infer that it required any high strain of philosophy to accommodate one's self to the circumstances of a few years' sojourn at Mauritius. One might, perhaps, assume it to be one of the most beautiful islands in the world. The good merchants and planters exhibit hospitality in its very pink, and abundantly evoke for your benefit the resources of the island. Objections, on the score of climate, I look upon as unworthy of a prudent traveller; for to one who will be at the pains of a little concession to circumstances, all climates soon become the same. 'Tis but an extra cloak at St Petersburg, and an hour or two's siesta at Calcutta. The one really assailable point in the constitution of Mauritius, is, that it is a little out of the twopenny-post line,--but as I was not in love, this mattered little to me. When I say that I was not in love, I must be understood as speaking irrespectively of Mauritius. Till I set foot on those bewitching shores I had deservedly enjoyed the character of a hard-hearted, impregnable bachelor. It would be tedious to sum up the names of my messmates, whom one after another I had seen fall victims to eyes that had vainly expended fascination on me. The girls always gave me up as a bad job within three weeks of our arriving at new quarters. But now my time was come--_dedi manus_--I had stretched my tether to the utmost; and soon after I had set foot on the island of Paul and Virginia I had ceased to be a freeman. Now, put all these things together, and you will not be surprised to hear that I was not out of my wits with joy, at being ordered home. Mine was one of those complicated cases of love that will occur sometimes; not _one_ flame, but many consumed me,--not _one_ image of female loveliness, but many such specimens, beset my reveries. I would turn out in the morning with the perfect conviction that Maria was the real girl after all, and so rest satisfied, till some person or thing, envious of my peace, would call up to my mind's eye, Lucie, or some other of the score of pretty names that rejoice Echo in that favoured spot. Thus did I shift my allegiance from one to another, and live in such uncertainty, that had Hymen's self decked for me the altar, I should have been so long in settling what name should thereon be inscribed, that he would infallibly have put his torch out in disgust.