On the 2nd March, 1824, the _Thetis_ quitted the roads at Brest to take up at Bourbon her companion, the _Esperance_, which, having started some time before, had set sail for Rio de Janeiro. A short stay at Teneriffe, where the _Thetis_ was only able to purchase some poor wine and a very small quantity of the provisions needed; a view of the Cape Verd Islands and the Cape of Good Hope in the distance, and a hunt for the fabulous island of Saxemberg, and some rocks no less fictitious, were the only incidents of the voyage to Bourbon, where the _Esperance_ had already arrived. Bourbon was at this time so familiar a point with the navigators that there was little to be said about it, when its two open roads of St. Denis and St. Paul had been mentioned. St. Denis, the capital, situated on the north of Bourbon, and at the extremity of a sloping table-land, was, properly speaking, merely a large town, without enclosure or walls, and each house in it was surrounded by a garden. There were no public buildings or places of interest worth mentioning except the governor's palace, situated in such a position as to command a view of the whole road; the botanic garden and the "Jardin de Naturalisation," which dates from 1817. The former, which is in the centre of the town, contains some beautiful walks, unfortunately but little frequented, and it is admirably kept. The eucalyptus, the giant of the Australian forests, the _Phormium tenax_, the New Zealand hemp-plant, the casuarina (the pine of Madagascar), the baobab, with its trunk of prodigious size, the carambolas, the sapota, the vanilla, combined to beautify this garden, which was refreshed by streams of sparkling water. The second, upon the brow of a hill, formed of terraces rising one above the other, to which several brooklets give life and fertility, was specially devoted to the acclimatisation of European trees and plants. The apple, peach, apricot, cherry, and pear-trees, which have thriven well, have already supplied the colony with valuable shoots. The vine was also grown in this garden, together with the tea-plant, and several rarer species, amongst which Bougainville noted with delight the "Laurea argentea," with its bright leaves. On the 9th June the two vessels left the roads of St. Denis. After having doubled the shoals of La Fortune and Saya de Malha, and passed off the Seychelles, whilst among the atolls to the south of the Maldive Islands, which are level with the surface of the water and covered with bushy trees ending in a cluster of cocoas, they sighted the island of Ceylon and the Coromandel coast, and cast anchor before Pondicherry. [Illustration: Natives of Pondicherry.] [Illustration: Ancient idols near Pondicherry. (Fac-simile of early engraving.)]