Discrepancies among the various Narratives. 269 



two islands still continue to present points of great interest on 

 closer examination and observation. Of the various ships 

 which, since the discovery of those islands, have visited them 

 for scientific purposes, hardly any have remained long enough 

 to be in a position to acquire a thorough acquaintance with the 

 various objects of natural history and scientific interest that 

 present themselves. Even the visit paid by the naturalist 

 attached to the expedition on board the English ship Lion and 

 Hindostan, which, on the 2nd of February, 1793, touched at 

 St. Paul, en route to China, and to whom we are indebted for 

 the first detailed account of this island, erroneously spoken 

 of as Amsterdam (following the example of former English 

 navigators), did not come within the original design of that 

 Ambassadorial expedition. It was the result rather of acci- 

 dent that, as the Lion and Hindostan were passing close in 



Britain to the Emperor of China, together with a relation of the voyage undertaken 

 on the occasion by H.M.S. Lion, and the ship Hindostan, E.I.C.N., to the Yellow- 

 Sea and Gulf of PeMn, as well as of their return to Europe, taken chiefly from the 

 papers of H.E. the Earl of Macartney, &c., by Sir George Staunton, Bart. (London, 

 1797), vol.1., pp. 205-27." — " Relation du Voyage a la recherche de La Perouse, fait 

 par I'ordre de I'Assemblee constituante pendant les annees 1791-92, et pendant la 

 !•■« et la 2^« annee de la RepubUque Fran9aise. Par le citoyen La Billardiere, 

 Con-espondent de I'Academie des Sciences de Paris. Au VIII. de le RepubUque 

 Fran9aise. Tome I. pp. 120-123." — " Johnston, A.K., General Gazetteer of the "World 

 (London, 1855)." — "Hamburgh, James, India Directory; or. Directions for Sailing 

 to or from the East Indies, China, Austi-aha, and the adjacent parts of Afiica and 

 South America (London, 1855). 7th Edition, vol. I., p. 101." — " Voyage to the South 

 Pole, and Round the World, by Captain Jas. Cook, R.N. (London, 1777)." An 

 interesting and tolerably circumstantial treatise on these islands is also to be found 

 among the transactions of the Imperial-Royal Geographical Society of Vienna for 

 the year 185T, second division, pp. 145-50, by Mr. A. C. Zhislunan, Professor of 

 Geography and History, in the I. R. Nautical Academy at Trieste. 



