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100 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. cnAP. lr. noble tree, it is less magnificent than the Poinciana regia. The estate of Wolmar comprises about 1200 acres, and yields excellent cane. The works are furnished with vacuum pans, and some of the most recent improvements. I here saw for the first time, in its different stages, the whole process of sugar making, from the grinding of the cane to the final drying of the crystallised sugar. On this estate, which is low, and near the sea, there were some of the largest trees I had seen in the island, especially the Badamia. I noticed here, what I had also observed elsewhere, that whatever might be the size of the trunks of the trees, most of the large branches appeared to have been broken off at a short distance from the main stem, while the indentations and seams in different parts of the trunk itself indicated that a great arm of the tree, had been violently broken off or torn out, leaving in these fractured limbs and scarred trunks a memorial of the force of the hurricanes which occasionally sweep across the island. The sky became overcast towards the end of the week, the wind tempestuous, and the rapid fall of the barometer indicated the approach of a hurricane. Guns as signals of distress were heard during the Saturday night; and on Sunday, the 29th of January, when Mr. W. Brownrigg kindly drove me into Port Louis that I might discharge my Sabbath duties, I found but a small assemblage, all the ships that could leave having put to sea. In the morning a Dutch vessel came in dismasted and otherwise injured. During the day, I also received letters from Madagascar, a vessel having arrived in the unusually short time of four days from Tamatave. Re turning to Plaines Wilhelms in the cool of the evening was exceedingly pleasant; on the following day, however, the rain came down in sheets, and the plain was flooded. But whenever thus confined to the house, I usually found my way to the well-furnished library; and, notwithstanding the unsettled state of the weather, time passed very pleasantly