Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

50 AUSTRALASIA.trade is carried on under the French flag, and especiallyregularly between the Mascarenhas and Madagascar.by the steamers plyingTopography of Reunion.Sf. TJciiis, present capital of the island, is not the oldest French settlement,having been preceded by St. Paid, founded by pioneers from Fort Dauphin(Madagascar), on the north-west coast. It occupies the northern extremity of theisland between two small rivers, and is a fine European city of some forty thousandinhabitants, well laid out with regular streets and some handsome public buildingsPis'. Hi. The Maeina of St. Denis.such as the governor's palace, town hall, barracks, hospital, lyceum, and museum.A large space in the very heart of the town is occupied by a beautiful botanicgarden. But St. Denis, lying on the windward side of the island, is exposed tothe full fury of the cyclonic gales, and as it possesses no large sheltered harbour,the shipping, on the approach of these hurricanes, is obliged to quit the open roadsteadand take refuge on the high seas. Nevertheless a brisk trade is carried on,especially in sugar, of which nearly twenty thousand tons were exported in 1886.Till recently the safest, or rather the least dreaded, seaport on the west side ofthe island was Sf. Paid, lying " under the wind " some 28 miles from thecapital, on a semicircular bay protected on the north by the triangular i^eninsula