296 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION. 
Sailing Directions, to find the chief settlement on this island, but although we could see 
huts no boat came off to us. Accordingly we determined to find a passage for ourselves 
over the reef-flat which extended for a breadth of 13 to 2 cables out from the land. 
The tide being nearly high, as many as possible got into the ‘ Xanthus’ and by shooting 
over the edge of the reef in parties in one of the skiffs landed ashore. The inhabitants 
consisted of two pensioners of the “ Société de Huiliére de Peros et Diego,” which, with 
its headquarters in Mauritius, owns the islands: the one was a Malagasy coast negro 
and the other a quarter-cast European Creole from Mauritius. Both had their wives 
on shore with them and both had been in the group for over 50 years without leaving it. 
From them we learnt that the settlement had been moved to [le du Coin on account of 
there being some small protection there from the heavy seas of the south-east trades, 
which at Diamant, being absolutely unchecked by the comparatively shallow rim of the 
A Gnathophausid-like Prawn from deep water. About nat. size. 
atoll to the south-east, are said to break with terrific force on the lagoon-reef. We also 
obtained a considerable amount of information about the whole atoll, which scarcely 
seemed favourable for the extended investigation we had intended. 
We then separated, one of us taking the north, the other the south half of the island, 
Capt. Somerville examining the former settlement, Fletcher entomologising, Simpson 
commencing the botanical collecting which he had volunteered to undertake, while 
Mr. Alexander set ont to inspect certain special points which we had observed from the 
ship. This island is about 2 miles long by 600 yards in greatest breadth and tapers at 
either end. It passes off to the east into a series of sand-banks, continuing up to the 
channel through which we entered the atoll, and to the south into a chain of islands on 
the atoll-rim, which is unbroken on its west side save by a single passage. The seaward 
