ABROLHAS' ISLANDS. 265 



cooked with other articles, their flesh being extremely 

 dry and insipid. I have been assured by those who 

 have had experience of it, that long indulgence in 

 eating them, produces scurvy of the most violent 

 type — more than one instance of such a fact being 

 on record. 



At noon of April 20th we saw the Abrolhas' 

 Islands, and a reef in their vicinity known as the 

 Turtle Dove, which, from observation, we found con- 

 siderably out of the position laid down on the chart 

 for it. Immediately on closing with the land we 

 lowered away two boats — one of which went fishing, 

 the other prospecting; at dark both returned, the 

 fishing boat with several barrels of snappers, jew-fish, 

 and gropers ; the prospecting party landed on Long 

 Island, and found it a long, narrow strip of coral 

 reef covered with broken shells and fragments of 

 coral cast up by the surf. A few mangroves and 

 stunted bushes comprised the vegetation. Large 

 numbers of birds were present, and on some portions 

 of the island were extensive deposits of guano, 

 though so mixed with coral and fractured portions 

 of shells as to be unfit for the purposes of the agri- 

 culturist. 



On the following day we again went in, and, carry- 

 ing the boat across a narrow part of the island, 

 we launched her again in the so-called bay, and pro- 

 ceeded to make soundings, by which we ascertained 

 the feasibility of anchoring here. "We also visited 

 Middle Island, where a small mound and a head- 

 board gave notice of the interment of a poor remnant 

 of mortality. The board bore the inscription, "Tho- 

 mas "Williams, deceased April, 1851 ;" purporting 

 23 



