322 
HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
or seven leagues in length from north to south. Having neared it, they anchored 
in a cove on the south-south-west side, which they examined; but as the season 
required their return to the Isle of France, they contented themselves with this 
imperfect knowledge of it. 
" They renewed their course on the 27th, and sailed along the island on the 
east, when they perceived the isles which are to the north-east, and contented them¬ 
selves with having seen them. 
It may be observed, that the two navigators charged with this expedition had not, 
by any means, the knowledge or experience necessary for such an important object; 
and though the difference they observed in the variation on this island, of 11° 30', and 
that which they found after, ought to have convinced them that there was a considerable 
error between them to the west, they counted upon their own reckoning of the lon¬ 
gitude, and as it appeared on the chart of Pietergoos, and that of the Depot de la 
Marine (edit. 1740), near the place which is distinguished by three small islets, called 
the Trois Freres ; they therefore imagined that the island which they had approached, 
as well as all those'which they had discovered, were these Trois Freres; and they 
accordingly took their departure, without any change in their opinion. They were, 
on their return, more fortunate than wise; for traversing this Archipelago, they 
made, on the 4th of January, the island of Madagascar, when, according to their 
reckoning, they were thirty leagues to the east of the Isle of Rodriguez ; so that the 
total error of their navigation was about three hundred leagues to the west. They 
at length arrived in the Isle of France, on the 28th of January, 1743. 
“ The report which they made of their discovery to M. de la Bourdonnais, de¬ 
termined that Governor (who judged that the supposed Trois Freres were rather 
some islands in the vicinity of the Amir antes, than those three islets), to send out 
again in the course of the same year, one of the two navigators, named Lazarus 
Picault, in the tartan Elizabeth; and he ordered a person to embark with him who 
was qualified to lay down a chart. M. Picault accordingly received instructions, 
on setting sail from the Isle of France, to take his course to the Malabar coast, in 
order to ascertain with precision the exact position of that isle. 
“ The journal of M. Picault having been communicated to me, as well as the 
draught which I now have in my possession, I had, from the knowledge which I 
acquired from the tracks of these navigators, placed that island in 52 0 30' longitude 
from the meridian of Paris, and consequently 45' more to the west than it is in fact. 
