318 APPENDIX. 



be said that the islet of the Portuguese is the part of Madagascar 

 best described, and whose position it is impossible to misunder- 

 stand. Yet the description of the Portuguese and the date 1545 

 are foreign to the island Mascarenhas or Mascareigne. 



As to the inscription of the Frencli, and the date 1653, the text 

 of Flacourt is quite clear ; this stone had been placed by him in 

 his garden at Fort Daupliin. To account for this inscription being 

 made on the occasion of the taking possession of the islaiid 

 Mascareigne, it would be necessary that the date should be 1649, 

 the year of the taking j^ossession by Lebourg, under order of 

 Flacourt, and Flacourt would not have omitted in his story so 

 interesting a detail as that of this stone, in place of simply saying 

 " the taking of possession was fastened to a tree below the arms 

 of the King". But this is only a gratuitous supposition. The 

 date 1653 agrees with the text and meaning of Flacourt. The 

 last words of the inscription, which would be very strange if it 

 had applied to a desert island like Mascareigne, form an incon- 

 testable proof of it : " advena, lege moyiita nostra, tibi, tuis, vitcv- 

 que tucE profutura ; cave ah incolis ! vale /" and Flacourt ends the 

 chapter Ixvii by the following explanation of this inscription : 

 " Which I caused to be done to warn the first captains of Christian 

 ships who should come from Europe to beware of treason of this 

 nation, in case on arrival in our absence and that of the ship, and 

 that the French getting impatient should go awaj^ to live before- 

 hand inland." 



As consequent to this description, we may remark that the 

 vulgar error as to the discovery of the island of Reunion, in 1545, 

 proceeds from the wrong localisation of the stone, of which we 

 have just spoken, at the island of Mascareigne. 



In glancing at the plate of Legnat, representing : in the centre, 

 the shape of the island Mascareigne ; to the right, the inscription 

 of the Portuguese, with the date 1545 ; to the left, the inscription 

 of the French, and the date 1653, and the whole on the same 

 sheet, it is not difficult to understand the facility with which the 

 eye could deceive the mind, indeed, without the knowledge of 

 the misleading text, of which the plate is only a material repro- 

 duction. — J. CODINE. 



