TIIK DISCOVERY OF THE MASCAKENE ISLANDS. 311 



which he knew he should meet with the islands already laid down 

 on his charts, and about which he had probably collected some 

 information from his predecessors. The fleet of Garcia de 

 Noronha arriving at Mozambique on the 12th March 1512, it 

 could not have been until the end of this month, or in the month 

 of April, that Mascarenhas was, perhaps, able to reach two of our 

 islands, as shown him by the chart 10 of the Geography of Livio 

 Sanuto, of 1588, where Bourbon and Mauritius are thus desig- 

 nated : MascaregncB insulcv dace, perhaps our three islands, of 

 which that most to the west, Santa ApoUonia, had been already 

 known by the Portuguese. In fact, this name indicates that the 

 island which bears it was thus named, either by a ship of that 

 name Avhich had discovered it — and then the day of that discovery 

 would be uncertain — or because the ship which discovered it 

 arrived there on the 9th February of a year which could only be 

 either 1512, or a year previous to 1512, as early as 1506, the 

 year of the discovery of Madagascar. 



It was not the year 1512. The fleet of Garcia de Noronha, 

 leaving Lisbon in 1511, arrived, after a bad passage, at the island of 

 Saint-Thomas ; the pilot, imagining that ho had doubled the Cape 

 of Good Hope, took a course to the nortli-east and reached the west 

 coast of Africa, which they coasted during a month and a half 

 before doubling this cape. The Portuguese historian shows us the 

 fleet, passing, half lost, between Sofala and the island of Saint- 

 Lawrence (Madagascar), and landing, for the first time since its 

 departure from the island of Saint -Thomas, at Mozambique, where 

 it arrived on the 11th March 1512 ; was there repaired, and when 

 the favourable monsoon commenced, continued its voyage on to 

 India. During the stay in harbour of this fleet at Mozambique, 

 it was joined by that of Pedro Mascarenhas. 



Going back to previous years, we can eliminate the fleets of 

 Gonzalo de Siqueira and of Diogo Mendez de Vasconcellos, who, 

 leaving Lisbon on the 16th March 1510, followed the ordinary 

 track ; and the fleet of Joao Serrao, leaving Lisbon the 8th August 

 the same j^ear, since Joilo Serrao, after having coasted along the 

 island of Saint-Lawrence, made a course for Goa, by the north of 

 that island, during which voyage Payo de Sa, on his way to 



