The rainfall in Mauritius is heavy in the summer months, December to March, especially on the east side of the hills, where the wind comes straight in from the warm ocean; and the temperature is high, at sea level, as Mauritius lies on the edge of the Tropics. Heat and rain, together with a rich volcanic soil, have made Mauritius what it is to-day. Agriculture is the only occupation of the people, and the only important crop is the sugar-cane. This was first introduced from the East India Islands by the Dutch, though little progress was made with its cultivation until the time of the French settlement. The forest which then covered the island was cleared away, and the cultivation of the cane, by means of slave labour on large plantations, became the staple industry of the new colonists. Large fortunes were made in the early part of the nineteenth century, but Mauritius, like the West Indies, has suffered greatly from the competition of beet-sugar, and its trade has declined greatly, though it has still a good market in India. Too much dependence on a single product has brought ruin on many of the planters. Here is a picture of one of these large sugar 46 estates. In front of us we see the cane growing and the planter looking over his crops; the ugly building, with the chimney, which spoils the middle of the picture, is the mill where the cane is crushed to extract the juice. The cultivation of sugar in Mauritius, like that of tea in Ceylon, has produced remarkable changes in the character of the people. When slavery was abolished, in 1835, new sources of labour for the plantations had to be found, and Indian coolies were imported on a large scale. These usually remained when the term of their contract was over; with the result that at the present time about three-quarters of the total population of the island is of Indian descent, the majority having been born in the island. We find them everywhere in the island, living 47 contentedly in primitive huts and cultivating their small patches of land. They are steadily acquiring the land in small plots and manage to exist comfortably even under present conditions. In short, Mauritius is becoming more and more an offshoot of India, since not only the labour but much of the food supply must come from the rice fields of India, so long as nearly all the land under cultivation is given up to a single crop like sugar. The climate, too, is more suitable to the brown than to the white people; malarial fever is always present, and the general conditions have not been improved by the cutting down of the greater part of the forest. Sometimes the weather brings disaster in a swift and sudden form, as Mauritius lies in the track of the cyclones which whirl in from the northeast, especially in March and April, and travel southwards towards Madagascar. In a