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Mauritius Quotes

Browse 17 quotes about Mauritius.

Mauritius Quotes

“There is a smell, rich and sickly sweet, so pungent I feel as if I am being choked. A smell that is both new and curiously familiar. Notes of the most intense jasmine with a back note of vanilla and overripe mango. The sea is too warm, and I cut short my night swim. As I pass through the garden, lanterns now glowing, the perfume has faded a little, it is less hypnotic, softer and more floral than before. Trumpets of deep-crimson hibiscus have closed for the night, chains of bougainvillea and a plant I do not know are the only ones in flower. It is this last from which the scent is emanating. Each blossom has thick white petals, crisp, like icing on a wedding cake. Almost too perfect to be real, the petals darken in the centre to a pale-yellow with a deep-saffron eye. Strangely, the scent is stronger from a distance than close up. My mystery flower is frangipani, or if we are talking in botanical terminology, Plumeria, the name given to honor the seventeenth-century French monk and botanist Charles Plumier. I note that the almond filling known as frangipane was once perfumed with the extract, though we are a long, long way from Bakewell. There are few perfumes I would call hypnotic-- tuberose, Casablanca lily, jasmine perhaps-- but frangipani is up there with them. I go back to my room, head throbbing, drunk on flowers.”

FlowerScentsHypnoticEast AfricaMauritiusFrangipaniPlumeria
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“The wife of a junior officer cooped up in a horrible canvas partition in steerage for five months wrote: "I had enjoyed much peace there in the absence of every comfort, even of such as are now enjoyed in jail. I used to say that there were four privations in my situation - fire, water, earth and air. No fire to warm oneself on the coldest day, no water to drink but what was tainted, no earth to set the foot on, and scarcely any air to breathe. Yet, with all these miserable circumstances, we spent many a happy hour by candlelight in that wretched cabin whilst I sewed and he read the Bible to me.”

StoicismMauritiusRoyal NavySea TravelEast Indiamen
Author:Stephen Taylor
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“Realising that Mauritius could be a valuable port of call for Dutch ships Heemskerck put a rooster and some hens ashore and planted orange and lemon seeds, invoking 'the Almighty God's blessing that He may lend His power to make them multiply and grow for the benefit of those who will visit the island after us'.”

IslandsExplorersMauritius
Book:Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History
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“[...] Paul Mokko avait été proclamé Sauveur du pays, parce qu'il avait le jour même tenu tête aux travailleurs: «Il a schlagué tous ces sales rats», disait-on. Et j'appris que grâce aux lézards, il avait été décoré ; et que par un tour de notaire, il avait arraché à deux «galeux» de l'Est une tranche du pays, et qu'on l'avait élu maire le jour même ; et que déjà l'île tout entière voyait en lui une «lumière».”

MauritiusChazalPetrusmok
Book:Petrusmok
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“Courez à Pamplemousses. Fouillez les trésors spirituels de votre terroir. Réveillez les mythes et soyez rajeunis d'âme. Les Rouges fouillaient les étoiles. Fouillez pour votre part la terre où ont passé leurs pas. Bénissez Cressonville, remerciez le Pouce, faites des génuflexions devant le Corps-de-Garde, plutôt qu'à vos puissants illusoires. L'île Maurice est une île du Mythe. Le mystère y rampe dans chaque allée. L'Alchimie y est continuelle, entre ciel et terre.”

MauritiusChazalPetrusmok
Book:Petrusmok
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