The Japan expedition Author:J. Willett Spalding Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. About 11 o'clock on our fifteenth morning out from the Cape of Good Hope, the southwestern end of the island of Mauritius was visible from the mas... more »thead, and we put on all our furnaces so as to reach Port Louis before night. On approaching the land we ran for two hours past highly-tilled fields encompassing the cosy houses of the planters, sloping to the water's edge in living green. As we neared the small crescent on which is built the little town of Port Louis, we were boarded by two English harbor-masters, who conducted us to our anchorage, and assisted in mooring the ship head and stern, as the place is too contracted for a vessel of any size to swing in. Their costume showed the philosophy which John Bull always carries into torrid temperatures. They were dressed in white linen roundabouts, pants and shoes, and on their heads were wide-brimmed hats, made of the pith of a tree and covered with white. "We had gotten the ship secured just about the time a gun from one of the forts nigh us. announced the hour to be 8 o'clock. I sat upon the wheel-house looking at the necklace of MAURITIUS. 57 lights that marked the town; the moon as if moved by the notes of our band which was playing delightfully " Katy Darling," and the " Old Folks at Home," seemed to rise more rapidly, and as it came it displayed the lofty outline of Peter Botte mountain, of Penny Magazine memory; the tall palms that fringed the beach on the right looked more stately and graceful in the silver light, and the scene altogether was so enchanting, that no one who looked upon it, could keep from feeling Bernardin-St.- Picrreish. At daylight next morning we got a look at Port Louis. The town is not extensive, though nestling prettily under tall volcanic hills. Its suburbs are composed of the re...« less