DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPEDITION. 117 
The Tamarin Mountains form a crowded series of peaks and valleys, while the area 
between their eastern limit and the Bamboos forms a fertile plain about 400 feet above 
the sea-level known as Grande Savane. The high land, wherever it approaches the sea, 
tends to end in sea-formed cliffs, but in most places there is now a flat of low land of 
varying width, which separates them from the waves. This in places is overlaid by 
their débris, and is formed partly by an upwashing from the fringing reefs and partly 
by an upheaval, of which we found evidence at Grand Port. 
The coasts of the island are everywhere fringed by coral-formations, which vary from 
isolated masses of coral and Lithothamnia, as off some parts of the south and west coasts, 
to the broad barrier-reefs which form Grand Port. Generally to the south and west 
ioe? 7. 
Mauritius, Cafion and Falls near Vacoa. 
there is a well-defined fringing-flat a few hundred yards broad, while to the east all 
stages are found up to a barrier-reef two to three miles from the beach. Where the flat 
is closely fringing, it is broken opposite every freshwater stream from the island, this 
resulting in the formation of many small ports. To the east, however, where it is 
broader, it is relatively less broken and there is no such clear connection with the 
streams. Indeed, many of the passages cannot conceivably owe their origin to the 
freshwater, noticeably Trou d’Eau Douce and certain passages near the Ie d’Ambre. 
The original town of Mahébourg, from which most of the bones of the Dodo, Tortoise, 
and Aphanapteryx have come, was built at the mouths of three streams which arise in 
