INTRODUCTION. 



Queen Victoria and the Oxford, East Indiamen, were 

 totally lost ; and Mr. Higgin, of Liverpool, who was 

 a passenger by the former of these ships, during his 

 enforced stay on the island for six weeks, was 

 enabled to make some observations on the natural 

 history of the island, which assisted Mr. Strickland, 

 the President of the Ashraolean Society, and Dr. 

 Melville, his coadjutor, in their magnificent mono- 

 graph on the Dodo and its kindred, towards their 

 investigation of the structure and habits of the 

 Solitaire, which was named Pezophaps solitarius; 

 a smaller species, PezojyJicqys minor, was determined 

 in 1852. In 1859 the Nassur Sultan, another East 

 Indian liner, was lost ; and it may be noted as a 

 fact that in each case of wreck the vessel is 

 reported to have struck at fifteen miles S.W., 

 although, from subsequent examination, it has been 



saved, but Mr. R. Plunkett, a passenger, and nine seamen were 

 drowned in a hasty attempt to reach the shore. The survivors 

 were hospitably entertained in the island of Eodrigues for thirty- 

 six days, until they obtained a passage to Bourbon, the governor of 

 which place forwarded them to Mauritius." (Asiatic Journal, 

 vol. i, p. 662; 1843.) 



"At 4, on the morning of 1st September 1843, the East-India 

 packet ship, Oxford, Captain Marshall, on her passage from Cal- 

 cutta to London, while under a press of sail, struck on a ledge of 

 rocks off the island of Rodrigues, and shortly after became a total 

 •wreck. The crew and passengers having taken to the boats, were 

 picked up by a Glasgow vessel and landed at Mauritius. The 

 loss of this vessel and of the Queen Victoria is attributed to an 

 error in the Admiralty Charts, in which this reef of rooks is 

 laid down as extending only five miles, whereas it extends from 

 fifteen to sixteen miles." (Asiatic Journal, vol. ii, p. 326 ; 

 1843-44.) 



