70 LAND TURTLES. [169I. 



'Tis the best Wood of all for Carpenters use, but 'twas of no 

 Service to us ; for it stinks so, that it makes all the Places 

 about it smell of it, and the Smell is very Offensive. 



We did not find in this Island any Plant, Tree, Shrub, 

 or Herb, which grows naturally in any part of Europe, that 

 was known to us, except Purslain,^ which is small and green, 

 There's plenty of it in some Places of the Valleys, and that 

 which we sow'd having brought some of the Seed from the 

 Cape, came up exactly like the Purslain of the Island. 



We saw no four-footed Creatures, but Eats, Lizards, and 

 Land-Turtles,2 of which there are different sorts. I have 



upon it, and is evanescent, and not at all like the persistent odour which 

 the Bois cabri emits. (Balfour, in Phil. Trans., vol. clxviii, p. 364, and 

 Plate xxxii ; and of. Baker, I. c, pp. 255 and 120.) 



1 Portukica oleracea, Creole name Pourpicr, is common in waste 

 ground, and especially abundant on the barren ground towaixls the west 

 of the island. {Balfour, I. c, p. 328.) 



2 According to Admiral Kempenfeklt, who visited Rodriguez in 1761, 

 the land-turtle was the best production of the island. Small vessels 

 were constantly employed in transporting them by thousands to JNIauri- 

 tius for the service of the hospital. The principal objects of interest 

 in Rodriguez then were : First, the house of the Suijerintendent 

 appointed by the Governor of Mauritius to direct the cultivation of the 

 gardens and to overlook the park of land-turtles ; secondly, the park for 

 the land-turtles, which is on the sea-shore, facing the house. As long 

 as Rodriguez was in the hands of the French, these tortoises were pro- 

 tected. {Hintory of Mauritius, etc., by C. Grant, Viscount de Vaux, 

 1801, pp. 100-101.) " But early in the present century the work of exter- 

 mination appears to have been accomplished,'' remarks Dr. GUnther, 

 " and there is at present of the Rodriguez tortoise not a single living 

 example in the island or in any other locality. 



" In 1874 the Presidents of the Royal and Geographical Societies 

 addressed a memorial to the Governor of Mauritius, Sir Arthur Gordon, 

 requesting him to preserve the last remnants of the nearly extinct race 

 of Mascarene tortoises, which still survive in the island of Aldabra. 



"Among the bones collected by the naturalist of the Transit of 

 Venus Expedition, 1874-5, some, far exceeding in size the majority 

 of their kind, are not rare, and prove that the Rodriguez tortoise was 

 quite equal in bulk to Testudo elephavtina, many individuals having 

 had a carapace four and a half feet long." (A. Giinther, in Phil. Trans., 

 I. c, pp. 462 seqq. See Appendix and supplementary note.) 



