330 APPENDIX. 



There are some sea-larks (Alouettes de mer')} but very few. 



The eggs of all these birds are very good to eat, as also their 

 flesh, but it has an oily taste. 



The land-tortoise is very abundant. It is not very fat, owing 

 to the great number of them and the dearth of grass ; it eats 

 leaves and the fruit of the trees, which the wind causes to drop on 

 the ground. There are tortoises of three species, and the largest 

 which I have seen are from three feet to three feet eight inches in 

 length of shell. They are not so common in the heights as in the 

 ravines, on account of the dearth of water in dry seasons. 



The island is, as I have said, mountainous on the east side and 

 in the middle ; but on the west side it is flat. The mountains are 

 intersected by valleys and ravines, which have a winding course of 

 a league within the mountains, and which widen towards the sea- 

 coast, on v/hich account the fresh water, in the dry seasons, is lost 

 before reaching the lower end, and there is no water but above in 

 the pools. There is very little cultivable soil ; all the ravines 

 which are around the island share in it, some more, others 

 less ; and of almost all these recesses, there are scarcely any 

 but are inundated by fresh water, and sea water in the hurricane 

 season. It would be possible, however, to prescribe limits to the 

 sea and prevent it coming within these localities with a little 

 trouble. The most considerable of these valleys, in the first place, 

 is half-a-league to the west of the Pointe du Sel, which has perhaps 

 about fifty toi$es in area. The soil in this locality is about five 

 feet in depth. 



The large valley has, perhaps, about thirty to forty square 

 toises of good soil ; the sea comes up very far in high tides, gales^ 

 and hurricanes. 



The habitations of FrauQois Leguat^ may have about forty 

 toises square. I speak of square, although the ground is not so ; 

 it is only the estimate that I make. Quite close to the settle 

 ments which I have just named is a flat piece of land to the south 

 of a sandbank, which is near the settlements. 



Alouettc de mcr, a term applied to all small sea sandpiper or plover, 

 go called. ^ Vide supra, pp. 50, 64. 



