66 ISLE OF STE. BRANDE. [169I. 



of which weigh'd five or six Pound, can be thrown on the 

 Coasts of Ro(lri()o, and come tliree or fonr score Leagues by 

 Sea without Corrupting. For we are very certain they come 

 from the Isle of Ste. Branch, which is to the Windward, to 

 the North-East of Ours, and at least as far off as I have 

 said.^ 



The Sea brings in nothing but from that side, from 

 whence we may conclude, there are certain Currents which 

 contribute very much together with the Wind and Tide 

 to throw abundance of things on the Coast.^ We may 

 therefore suppose, these Fruits were blown off from the 



Garajos, in lat. 16° 25' south, and between long. 50° and 60° east, is 

 difficult to reconcile with the circumstance of the prevailing south-east 

 monsoon setting the current in an opposite direction, i.e., towards this 

 group from Rodriguez. There are, however, more singular instances 

 of drift on record, e.g., the Keeling Islands, whose flora is almost 

 wholly derived from islands in the Indian Archipelago, though the 

 direction of the wiuds and currents would hardly seem to render such 

 a thing possible. Compare Darwin's remarks on this subject in Voyage 

 of the Beagle, vol. iii, p. 542, and Chamisso, in Kotzebue's first voyage 

 (vol. iii, p. 155). 



1 Here our author is in error ; the Cargados Garajos (vide note on 

 p. 65) are to the north-icestuard of Rodriguez, and about 300 miles distant 

 from it. These islets, of which there are said to be sixteen in number, 

 lie off a dangerous bank of coral sand. It was with reference to their 

 position that an acrimonious controversy raged, towards the end of the 

 last century, between the Abbe Rochon and M. d'Apres de Manevil- 

 lette, a well-known hydrographer, the Abbe having placed St. Brandon 

 fifty leagues to the eastward of Cargados Garajos. Later surveyors 

 have, however, succeeded in establishing their identity. According to 

 Sir E. Belcher, who visited the group in 1846, the fishermen there have 

 a way of calling every white stone above water a St. Brandon. The 

 southernmost of these isles, Coco Island, owes its name to its having 

 been formerly covered with these trees, of which only two remained 

 in a perishing condition at the time of his visit. St, Brandon is noted 

 for the beautiful scarlet coral, the Tubifora mnsica. (Cf. Findlay's 

 Sailing Directions for the Indian Ocean, p. 454 ; Pike's Suh-tropical 

 Rambles, pp. 423-4; Voyages a Madagascar, par Alexis Rochon, 1802, 

 tome i, ch. xlvi.) 



2 " Dans la saison de I'Ouragan, on pourroit dire que le tourbillon 

 auroit enleve ces fruits dans I'isle de Ste. Brande." 



