APPENDIX 



A. 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE MASCARENE ISLANDS.^ 



M. Jules Codine, of the Societc de Geographie at Paris, has 

 succeeded in partially unravelling the interesting problem as to 

 the actual date of the discovery of the several islands which 

 compose the Mascarene archipelago. Absolute certainty as to 

 this date must remain in obscurity until the Portuguese archives 

 have been more thoroughly investigated. 



Tradition assigns the first discovery of these islands to Masca- 

 renhas, but M. Codine remarks that there were sevei'al voyagers 

 and notable persons of that name who served in the Indies during 

 the sixteenth century. 



Don Joan Mascarenhas was governor of Diu in 1545, and M. 

 Codine points out that as Don Joan Mascarenhas was at Diu 

 throughout the year 1545, it could not have been that adminis- 

 trator who discovered the islands under the tropic of Capricorn in 

 that year. The error of giving this date, 1545, as that of the 

 first discovery of Reunion has arisen from a wrong interpretation 

 given to certain insci'iptions on a stone pillar, which M. de 

 Flacourt speaks of and figures in his History of Madagascar.'^ 



The error of the date 1545 is proved by the appearance of the 

 names of the three islands, Ai^olonia, Mascarenas, and Domigo 

 Friz, on the chart of the famous pilot^ Diego Ribero, in the Atlas 

 of Santarem, under date of 1529. 



These islands, writes M. Codnie, have on several maps the 

 generic name " Isles Mascarenhas". This trenei'ic name has also 



1 Vide Memoire Geographique sur la Mer ties hides, par J. Codiue, 

 Paris, 1868, chap, vii, p. 188 et see/. 

 - Vide supra, p. 41, and Addendum, infra. 



