I feel as if I had lived here all my life, although it is really more unlike the ordinary English colony than it is possible to imagine; and yet (as the walrus said to the carpenter) this "is scarcely odd," because it is not an English colony at all. It is thoroughly and entirely French, and the very small part of the habits of the people which is not French is Indian. The result of more than a century of civilization, and of the teachings of many colonists, not counting the Portuguese discoverers early in the sixteenth century, is a mixed but very comfortable code of manners and customs. One has not here to struggle against the ignorance and incapacity of native servants. The clever, quick Indian has learned the polish and elegance of his French masters, and the first thing which struck me was the pretty manners of the native--or, as they are called, creole--inhabitants. Everybody has a "Bon soir!" or a "Salaam!" for us as we pass them in our twilight walks, and the manners of the domestic servants are full of attention and courtesy. Mauritius first belonged to the Dutch (for the Portuguese did not attempt to colonize it), who seem to have been bullied out of it by pirates and hurricanes, and who finally gave it up as a thankless task about the year 1700. A few years later the French, having a thriving colony next door at Bourbon, sent over a man-of-war and "annexed," unopposed, the pretty little island. But there were all sorts of difficulties to overcome in those early days, and it was not even found possible--from mismanagement of course--to make the place pay its own working expenses. Then came the war with England at the beginning of this century; and that made things worse, for of course we tried to get hold of it, and there were many sharp sea-fights off its lovely shores, until, after a gallant defence, a landing was effected by the English, who took possession of it somewhere about 1811. Still, it does not seem to have been of much use to them, for the French inhabitants naturally made difficulties and declined to take the oath of allegiance; so that it was not until the great settling-day--or rather year--of 1814, when Louis XVIII. "came to his own again" and definitively ceded Mauritius to the British, that we began to set to work, aided by the inhabitants with right good-will, to develop and make the most of its enormous natural resources.