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16 Sep 57 John Port Louis, Mauritius Mother _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sept^r 16^th 1857

Port Louis

Mauritius

My dear Mother

As I hope to leave town next week to spend a few days at my country house at Black river (the particulars of which I mentioned before) I may as well begin my letter this early so as not to leave it till the last moment when I may perhaps be prevented by duty from writing.

We had a splendid ball on the 14^th. It went by the name of the ‘Bal des trente’ because given by thirty of the subscribers to the Turf club. The decorations alone for the rooms cost £200, which is a mistake in the tropics, for if they had given us plenty of air which does not cost much, we should have been far more comfortable. But let the heat pass. The floor was first rate. The music (our band of course) was capital, and as I am beginning to know the people, I had good partners without any bother about introductions. We began about nine and kept it up till three and I could have gone on for as long again. This is rather a gay week for us. Tomorrow the Cricket Club give a ball, so you see we strike while the iron is hot. I have not seen any of the ‘belles Creoles’ who we have all heard so much talked about. There are one or two rather pretty French girls, but very few English worth looking at.

There is very little news to tell you, in fact none at all, and as our English mail which brings us news from India as well is late, and probably will not be in for another week, there is not even home news to discuss. I am falling into my old way of taking long walks, at which our people laugh, telling me I shall kill myself. But as I do not find the place too hot as yet for that sort of thing I do not concern myself much about their good natured advice. I shall send a long list of wants in this letter, provided always that we are intended to stay here and not go on to India which latter I look forward to doing.

Cricket is now one of our great amusements and on Saturday we are to play a match against the Port Louis Club. I am not one of the performers, but I amuse myself almost every day by practising on the barracks square which is covered with grass, unlike most drill grounds which are gravelled.

Sept^r 30^th

I came back the night before last from Black river after a week’s stay and I must say that I enjoyed myself very much. But first I must tell you that the Cricket Ball on the evening of the 17^th, of which I spoke in the first part of this letter, was very good. They have a very good habit of beginning early here. We were asked for half past eight and if we tried the fashionable dodge on and did not make our appearance till half past nine, not a partner would we get. At the beginning of the evening the Engagement cards must be filled up and then we are all right and are certain of a merry evening.

No letters from home except one from Mary of July 8^th – which ought to have arrived before.

No news whatever about Mary’s wedding except that it is published in the papers. This is too bad for I am sure it must be entirely the fault of the post office. Our advices are up to August 10^th ‘via Marseille’ and among other things I see that the 34^th have left for India but I see no mention of Julius’ name in the list of those officers * who have started. You should find out when the Southampton mail closes and up to what time the Marseille mail is open, so that if you are late for one you must put it via the other one. If you put no directions of that sort on they will come by Southampton and unless you have important news to tell, you may as well send them that way as it is cheaper.

I have not heard from Peter yet, but hope to get a letter soon. Until I hear from him, I do not know where to address to. Neither have I heard from Teddy at present. Most of these steamers coming from England will touch here so that I hope to see many old friends and to find Julius on board the ‘Golden Fleece’ altho’ his name is not mentioned as embarking.

The news from India does not seem to improve. I hope our people are in the thick of it for the sake of the regiment etc. as it may tend to their keeping the wing there and sending us on to join them.

I must now give you a description of our stay at Black river last week. Mrs and Miss Twiss, the wife and daughter of Col. Twiss, our Engineer Officer and the Commandant of Port Louis, rather coolly invited themselves to be of the party. Mr and Mrs Stokes (he is a Lieut. in the Engineers and she is a very nice little person about 20 years of age). Maule of the Artillery (a Lieut.) and ‘this child’ formed the party. Col. Cockburn of the Artillery only coming down towards the end of the week. We gentlemen were to breakfast at 3½ am in my quarters and to start at four, but we preferred seeing the packing of our eatables etc. on the carts done first so did not breakfast till 4½ and owing to the trouble about carts (having to send for a second one etc.) did not leave Port Louis till 6am, having the prospect of a twenty mile walk before us and a boiling hot day. (You must understand that in the tropics, day & night are nearly equal length, summer and winter.) There may be half an hour difference in the rising and setting of the sun but not more and there is no twilight. Directly light appears at all it becomes quite light & there is not more than five minutes of the ‘grey of the morning’ which in our country lasts for more than an hour. We stopped on our way to ‘do a little beer’ which helped us on well and we managed to walk the 20 miles in 4½ hours. Tell that to any of you pedestrian friends, that we walked that in the tropics. There are few men in the world will do it very much faster in temperate zones.

When we got in, we had (after some boiled eggs and porter) to arrange the furniture in the rooms, in readiness for the arrival of the ladies, and then we took a walk to call on the head man of the place and to see about the commissariat, with reference to vegetables, eggs, fowls etc. In the afternoon the ladies appeared having driven down and the rest of the day was devoted to making them comfortable. Next day we had a shell fishing party about six o’clock a.m. on the coral reef up to our knees in water, but we did not find much worth having. Guns out after breakfast and bath but altho’ we killed five or six birds of sorts different to what we had seen before, still we did not discover any particularly astonishing facts in natural history.

In the afternoon we took the ladies out to pay a visit to the squire (as I call him). He is a Frenchman by name Geneve & the family have always been very friendly to the English even before the island was taken. * So much so indeed, that whenever any English prisoners were taken, the French governor used always to send them down to M. Geneve to be taken care of, and when the island was taken by the English, the governor received orders to treat this family with peculiar consideration, so that the bonds between us have been cemented by self-interest as well as good feeling. We had rather an awkward contre-temps at his house. We found nobody in but madame, who did not speak a word of English, and the ladies, after a word or two of French fought shy of speaking it. So there were seven of us sitting silent looking at one another, just for all the world like a quakers’ meeting. So after waiting to give the ladies a fair chance, seeing that they could talk French and I could not, I took the conversation on my shoulders and covered the retreat of the attacking army.

We then proceeded to Geneve’s sugar mill to see the process and ‘tell it not in Garth’ * to taste the sugar. We saw the whole details of the mill which seem very simple and it was explained to us how they make their money. Making in their small mill 10,000lbs of sugar daily and next year they will have a mill which will make 30,000lbs a day, seeing that it costs scarce anything to raise or make it. The cane is planted and grows without any more attendance and for seven years in good soil they can leave the roots in the ground instead of planting fresh every year. Then the cane tops are food for the mules and the cane, after the juice has been squeezed out, forms the fuel which is used in the mill. Labor is very cheap to keep the things going, so that there is scarcely any expense and very large return.

After our visit to the sugar mill we got back to dinner & bed. Next day passed much in the same manner with a stroll in the afternoon along the sea shore. On the Thursday Col. Cockburn of the Artillery drove down in his cart and in the afternoon we pushed our way up a very pretty gorge in the mountains. The scenery reminded me very much of the entrance to Saxon Switzerland. We had to ford several rivers, about as high as our knees, but when out for pleasure, one does not mind those trifles. Geneve sent down a pony & side saddle with regrets that he had no more ladies saddles, so Mrs Stokes rode through the rivers with us, and up the gorge. On our way down however, we had to travel rather faster than we went up as the rain came down rather sharply upon us. However we managed to shoot a very rare hawk and I think I lodged a dose of shot in a monkey & a fine old fellow he was too. But I could not get across the stream to pick him up altho’ I wanted him very much.

Next day we had another very pleasant excursion to the Morne, * a very peculiar hill on the coast, but the roads were very bad and we judged it advisable to turn before we reached our goal. Just after we turned, snap went a couple of bolts in the Twiss’ carriage, a rotten old thing, and up went the springs. However we sent the ladies on towards home, with the prospect of an eight mile walk and three or four rivers to ford before them, and we got some rope and mended the carriage and drove after them, just in time to find them making up their minds to walk through one of the rivers before mentioned. They were saved from that, but had been in a horrible state of mind. So bad indeed, that on meeting Maule of the Artillery coming up with his gun, Mrs Twiss gave him her watch, for fear she should be murdered on the way home.

The next day was all rain till late in the afternoon when it cleared up & looked so pretty and pleasant that the ladies could hardly tear themselves away from it. However they went off & Col. Cockburn went away so we were left to walk up on Sunday, that being our last leave day. We started at two o’clock in the heat of the sun, and very warm we found it. Kept up a good pace although we had to take off shoes and stockings to cross a river and that lost us a quarter of an hour. Half way we had some beer and sat down to cool for a quarter of an hour or so and after all, we got in about a quarter to seven. A good twenty miles in about 4¼ hours. Tremendous walking & in the hottest part of the day too. Had a good dinner after a bath and then dressed in uniform etc. and went to mess room to show that we were quite equal to our work & so ‘shut up’ the good natured people who said we were maniacs to walk that distance.

Oct^r 2^nd.

Yesterday was my birthday and so I am 22 years of age. What a short time it seems since we were sitting round the table at the Pavilion and yet how much have we seen since then. I am not fond of moralising in letters but I cannot help thinking if I have made the best use of the last year. I have had plenty to do and I have tried to do it well. Now I am brought to a deadlock, having scarcely anything to do, and this is not at all the place to study. In hot climates a man cannot read for any length of time. The temperature is to relaxing & a couple of hours reading would be certain to end in a snore. Again, there is a great disadvantage in the way we have our parades. They are always in the cool of the afternoon, just when we should wish to go out to pay visits. So we are kept in all day doing nothing but sitting on the verandah, chaffing or employed at some other equally intellectual amusement. We must not grumble however and as I seem in that humour, I shall leave off and go to breakfast & see whether I can stop my mouth that way.

There were several things doing on Thursday. An exhibition of Manufactures filled the afternoon. Our band was there & the governor attended and of course all the people of the island were there too. Not that there was anything worth seeing exhibited, but they went to stare at one another, and to show off their dresses and certainly among the darker portion of the fair sex, the dresses were of the loudest kind – yellow silk dress with green cloak and red bonnet was about the style. In the evening we had a concert at the theatre in which our band as usual took a prominent part, but as our first cornet and one of the best clarionets had a difference of opinion half an hour before, which resulted in ‘clarionets’ eyes being what is vulgarly called ‘bunged up’ and in their both being lodged in the guard room for the next twenty four hours to get cool, the band did not come out so strong as they usually do. However we had a very pleasant evening, especially as I had taken care to drink my own health in champagne at dinner, nodding to you all at home in imagination as I drank.

Yesterday we had a grand masonic meeting to affiliate General Hay, who leaves today, to the Lodge here. He is very much liked and they have paid him the compliment of ordering his portrait to be painted and hung up in their room, and today we all meet him, and escort him to his ship, paying him all the honors due to a brother who conducts himself properly and paying him the respect due to his station and to the way in which he has carried on the duties, making himself beloved, I may say, by every body, French and English. After the lodge was over, we drank his health and then proceeded to the Champs de Mars to hear the band play. So you see we keep moving & are trying to make our stay pleasant if we can.

Oct^r 5^th

After two very heavy Courts Marshall, during the whole of Saturday morning, I was ordered to take command of the Guard of Honor drawn up at the landing stair, to pay the General the last compliments we could. This took up the whole of the afternoon. Yesterday (Sunday) M. Garreau, an Anglo-Frenchman of one of the best families here, sent his carriage to take me out to Mr. Sandwith’s where we breakfasted – he having slept there the night before, being an old fellow student in England of Sandwith. After breakfast we drove to his (Garreau’s) sugar plantation, saw his mill and went among the huts of his Indian labourers, to see their style of living, and then we went to a place (at the foot of the world-known Peter Bott mountain) * called Creve Coeur, * from which place you have the finest view in the island, looking down from a great height on a very fertile valley, sloping towards the sea and the enclosures and cane fields of a beautifully bright green, gave one the idea of being in England. But not a house was to be seen & that rather dispelled the illusion. The cause of not seeing the houses is that the cottages are thatched with dried cane tops, which are of brown color, the same as the ground. And the better sort of houses are roofed with shingles (at least so I believe they call pieces of wood cut like tiles and used for roofing).

After our walk we went back to tiffin (how these natives do eat!! – an Englishman is nothing to them) and then out again to see sugar mills etc., this time belonging to an Englishman who, having been educated as and being, a gentleman, has thrown up all civilised society & taken to sugar making and I may say to fortune making. For that follows as a matter of course. I think the right thing to do would be to sell out, marry a planter’s daughter – except that I have only seen one nice looking ‘jeune dame’ in that line at present and that does not give one much choice – and take steadily to sugar making. And provided sugar holds the price it fetches now, in ten years any amount of money may be made. That would be my plan if I were mercenary, but that would be a self-inflicted punishment. Many officers have done that here and made enormous fortunes, but it would be perhaps rather a drop in the world and I think I would rather throw my lot in England than remain in penal servitude here, altho’ money is a very nice thing.

I am scribbling away here during all my spare hours and a nice lot of rubbish you will probably find in this letter, but such as it is, it must go and if it serves no other purpose (for very little information will you get from it) it will at least shew that I am thinking of you and about you. Altho’ my letter is almost exclusively about self, yet I do not much see what else would be the least interesting to you. Supposing I talked about the regiment and Major this and Captⁿ that who you did not know, that would be very stupid for you and as I do not pretend to great powers of description,

I will refer you for ‘Manners and Customs of ye Mauritians’ to Madame Ida Pfeiffer’s * next new work, for as she has passed through this place after being nearly killed in Madagascar, it is extremely probable that she will say in a few words all that is worth knowing about this ‘garden of the world’. Certainly not a flower garden, as there are no flowers worth looking at in the place. Perhaps market garden is suitable, but I do not pretend to play upon words. I always write from six to seven in the morning and now it is near half past seven, so I must put on my coat and go out to take my bath, without which I do not feel like a man for the whole day.

I have just had to draw a cheque on Cox & Co. for £20 for which 5 per cent discount was charged so that I only got £19. This was to pay my Company’s bad debts owing to men deserting when leaving Dublin and to providing for the rifles etc. and all those trifles which run up to large amounts in a most astonishing way. Will you ask my Father to make it all right with the agents. If my Father paid my quarterage last June and the £35 for the horse, I left England £4 in credit at Cox’s and as September 2^nd was quarter day, my cheque for £20 should leave me £9 in the agent’s hands. Besides December 2^nd is not very far off. Even if I do not want the money I like it to be put into Cox’s hands, just to go through them it gives one a better name to have large sums shewn in the abstract even altho’ they do not remain a week in his hands. I hope not to want any more money from home except in the case of buying a horse and trap. Then I shall ask my Father to advance me whatever the price may be, and I have no doubt that in a year’s time I shall be able to pay, or if not, I must ask him to sell out some of my bank shares. A horse and dog cart will cost at least £100 and I fancy it is always better £10 more for a certainty than try and save money in buying a bargain and altogether come to grief. If I do not see a trap that I like, I shall not put my hands in my pocket altho’, mind you, it is far cheaper to own a horse and trap and drive everywhere oneself, instead of having to pay £2 for a carriage every time one wants to go five miles into the country, and as all the people worth knowing live up on the high ground, about seven miles from here, we are obliged either to be very rude and not return their visits, or else to pay our £2 down and look pleasant.

I was very pleased on looking at the paper today (one of the old newspapers that arrived last month) to find that the Union Bank are giving 20 per cent on the £10 shares – so that my present income from my 15 shares must be £30 a year. I hope to be able to put something to it to make it more before long. November is the time to send home money from this place by receiving a bill on houses at home we get 5 per cent premium, so I shall put any money I can save in the savings bank until next year and then try and make something of it by sending it home. But owing to the price of everything here, the saving is very problematical. Still, General Hay, before he left, told me that he had applied for and recommended an additional colonial allowance of £5 a month to be given to the instructor of Musketry. That would be something to put by: £60 a year.

Oct^r 12^th

At last I see the mail is coming in being as usual several days overdue and now I suppose I shall receive two months correspondence from you all. We shall not get our letters for seven or eight hours and until then I do not like to write, for fear of having to unsay much that I may now put on paper. The Candia steamer with about 100 officers of all regiments put in here on Saturday and I should think the people of Port Louis have not slept a wink since the arrival. All night long they paraded the street, singing God Save the Queen and Rule Britannia and I think such a noise never has been heard here before since Port Louis has been a town. Our lively birds of course were out with them to swell the concourse. In fact all the people passing through here naturally, when they get ashore, are in such high spirits that they cannot well contain themselves, and when they come near our people, it is like flint and steel. Combustion takes place at once.

I hope to be able to send an answer to your letters in this one so shall leave off writing until the letters are delivered.

Oct^r 13^th

We got our letters delivered last night and all those that ought to have arrived in Sept^r were delivered. The mistake made I think is this: you post the letter on the 4^th of the month in London, but the both leaves Southampton at 12 o’clock or thereabouts on that day, so that all the letters come a month late. There are no letters whatever of September altho’ the papers ‘via Marseille’ are up to the 10^th of Sept^r. It is very kind of you to write such long letters, for it is a great treat to hear from home, but I wanted you to have told me how the bride and bridegroom behaved, and what all the speeches were about. I am very curious about little things like that. I am going rather too fast though perhaps. Were there any speeches at all? I have written to Rome – ‘Poste Restante’ – a long letter, so I hope it will not be left there for ever. Mary desired me to write to them there as they would be there in November. So I have acceded to her request & my letter will get there in November.

I am very sorry Julius is left behind. I know he would feel being separated from his regiment very much, but I hope that after all they will not transfer him unless they send him to an old regiment where he may soon get some steps towards his promotion.

I received the papers for signature last night and will return them by this mail & shall try and send them in the government bag, where perhaps they will be safer than in the public conveyance.

Oct^r 14^th

The mail is kept open until today, so of course I do not close my letter till the last moment. Mr. Sandwith has kindly promised to put the important documents into the government mail bag, and this letter may as well go with them in the envelope. I shall also enclose some other letters which I wish you would forward to their destination and thus I save about £1 in postage. It is all very well to say ‘look after the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves’. Very probably, but it is just as well to keep your eye on the pounds too.

I dined with the Artillery the night before last. Col. Cockburn is very fond of music and he assembles all the amateur players that he can get hold of once a week, and they play very nicely together. Last night I dined with Col. Twiss, the Commandant and acting general. We had a very pleasant little party, much better than the generality of dinner parties which are stupid things as a rule. Tonight is one of our lodge nights and tomorrow I dine out again at Mrs Beke’s. She is what you may call rather a fast lady – always driving very good horses and coming out I believe as rather a good Whip. Besides which, report says she horsewhips her servants. I do not know how true that may be. She has a twitch in her mouth sometimes and there is rather a wicked look in her eye. Rather vixenish I dare say however I like her very well altho’ she is not a favourite among the ladies of the island. Still she is to be met everywhere and I fancy it is only jealousy that stands in her way.

I must really close this letter at last, so with best love to my Father and little Helen – the last remains of a once numerous family. Believe me ever.

Your affectionate Son

J Wimburn Laurie

4^th The King’s Own Reg^t

Oct^r 13^th /57.

* list of those officers – In fact Julius embarked three months later from Southampton on 4^th December, on board ‘Indus’

* before the island was taken – In 1810, a Royal Navy expedition led by Commodore Josias Rowley, an Anglo Irish aristocrat was sent to capture the island, at that time called ‘Ile de France’. Despite an early defeat by the French, British forces landed and the island was surrendered that December, on terms allowing settlers to keep their land and property and to use the French language and law of France in criminal and civil matters. Under British rule, the island's name reverted to Mauritius.

* tell it not in Gath – Biblical quotation from 2 Samuel 1:2 ‘Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult’

* Morne – Le Morne, a rugged mountain that juts into the Indian Ocean in the South West of the island, which was used as a shelter by runaway slaves, maroons, through the 18^th and early years of the 19^th centuries. Now a UNESCO World Heritage site

* Peter Bott Mountain – Pieter Both, sometimes referred to as Peter Botte Mountain, is the second highest mountain on the island, at 820 metres. It is named after Pieter Both, the first Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies

* Creve Coeur – ‘broken heart’ in French; a sugar estate, now a settlement, about five miles outside Port Louis

* Madame Ida Pfeiffer – Ida Pfeiffer (1887-1858) née Reyer, was an Austrian, and one of the first female explorers and travel writers, whose bestselling journals were translated into seven languages. She journeyed through Southeast Asia, the Americas, Middle East, and Africa, including two trips around the world from 1846 to 1855. She was a member of geographical societies of both Berlin and Paris, but was denied membership by the RGS in London, which did not admit females before 1913. She was in Mauritius in 1858 but became ill and died in Vienna later that year.