She saw much scenery in this rich and beautiful little island that moved her to admiration.  The volcanic mountains assume the boldest and most romantic outlines.  The vegetation is of the most luxuriant character.  Each deep gorge or mountain-valley blooms with foliage; and the slopes are clothed with stately trees, graceful shrubs, and climbing plants; while shining streams fall from crag to crag in miniature cascades.  Of course Madame Pfeiffer visited the sugar-cane plantations, which cover the broad and fertile plains of Pamplemousse.  She learned that the sugar-cane is not raised from seed, but that pieces of cane are planted.  The first cane requires eighteen months to ripen; but as, meanwhile, the chief stem throws out shoots, each of the following harvests can be gathered in at intervals of twelve months; hence four crops can be obtained in four years and a half.  After the fourth harvest, the field must be cleared completely of the cane.  If the land be virgin soil, on which no former crop has been raised, fresh slips of cane may be planted immediately, and thus eight crops secured in nine years.  But if such is not the case, “ambrezades” must be planted—­that is, a leafy plant, growing to the height of eight or nine feet, the leaves of which, continually falling, decay and fertilize the soil.  After two years the plants are rooted out, and the ground is once more occupied by a sugar plantation.

When the canes are ripe and the harvest begins, every day as many canes are cut down as can be pressed and boiled at once.  The cane is introduced between two rollers, set in motion by steam-power, and pressed until it is quite flat and dry:  in this state it is used for fuel.  The juice is strained successively into six pans, of which the first is exposed to the greatest heat—­the force of the fire being diminished gradually under each of the others.  In the last pan the sugar is found half crystallized.  It is then deposited on great wooden tables to cool, and granulate into complete crystals of about the size of a pin’s head.  Lastly, it is poured into wooden colanders, to filter it thoroughly of the molasses it still contains.  The whole process occupies eight or ten days.  Before the sugar is packed, it is spread out on the open terraces to dry for some hours in the sun.

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An excursion was made to Mount Orgueil, in order to obtain a panoramic view of the island-scenery.  On one side the lofty ridge of the Morne Brabant, connected with the mainland only by a narrow neck of earth, stretches far out into the sapphire sea; near at hand rises the Piton de la Riviere Noire, the loftiest summit in the island, two thousand five hundred and sixty-four feet.  In another direction are visible the green tops of the Tamarin and the Rempart; and in a fourth, the three-headed mountain called the Trois Mamelles.  Contiguous to these opens a deep caldron, two of the sides of which have broken down in ruin, while the others remain erect and steep.  Besides these mountains, the traveller sees the Corps de Garde du Port Loris de Mocca; Le Pouce, with its narrow peak projecting above the plateau like a thumb; and the precipitous Peter Botte.