"How wonderful are the ways with which Nature supplies our wants!" observed the doctor. "Not only do trees give us fruit in every variety of shape, consistency, and flavour, but even their juices minister to our gratification. How many valuable gums do they exude! The maple-tree of North America gives excellent sugar, and certainly the discovery of caoutchouc has added very much to our comfort and convenience. Just think of the number of elastic articles, the waterproof dresses, the piping, and even the boats which are made with it." Ricama assisted us to pick some leaves from the tea plants, with which, in their raw state, we afterwards made an infusion, and we found it differ little from ordinary tea, except that it possessed a richer aromatic flavour and scent. Ricama told us that great numbers of his countrymen came over to the Mauritius, and among others the son of the famous King Radama had been sent to learn various useful trades. As his majesty had considered that the first step towards civilising his subjects was to have them dressed, he had requested that his son might learn the trade of a tailor. The young prince, however, was said not to have taken very kindly to the goose, and had soon returned. Among other trees were guavas, bananas, mangoes, breadfruit palms, and two or three fern-trees. The leaves of the latter are in shape like those of the English fern, but of gigantic proportions, and grow on the top of a stem thirty feet in height. The sugar-cane is the chief cultivated production of the island on all the more level parts. The fields are surrounded with pine-apple plants; the fruit is, therefore, so abundant that the pines are sold for a penny a-piece. A small insect had, however, lately attacked the sugar-canes, eating their way into them and destroying them utterly. Though fresh canes had been introduced, they had suffered in the same way. The proprietors, like those of Madeira, had therefore lately taken to cultivating the mulberry tree to feed silk-worms. The overseer entreated that we would remain at the estate as long as we could. I had got leave to be away from the ship for a week, and the doctor said that he need not return for some days. Could I have forgotten my disappointment in not meeting with Alfred and our grandfather, I should have considered those some of the most delightful days in my existence. Yet we did little but converse with Ricama and go about the estate, with short trips into some of the wilder regions of the island, and examine and hear about the trees, and shrubs, and fruits, and flowers, and animals, and insects, and reptiles of the country.