HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
335 
altitude of several stars, and from the result of his observations he concluded, that 
the latitude of the northernmost isle was 5 0 59'. The second, which is four leagues 
to the south-south-west of the first, is in 6° 10'; and the third, being about three 
leagues south by south-west of the second, is in 6° 20'. Two days after, having 
made Diego Garcia, whose longitude has been determined from the observations of 
M. l’Abbe Rochon, he inferred from thence that the longitude of these islands was 
67° 34^. The number of them induced me to suspect that they are those which 
former navigators named the Trois Frercs. 
“To the north-north-east, 5 0 north of the island of Diego Garcia , and twelve 
leagues east-south-east of the islets discovered by the English vessel, which have been 
already mentioned, are the islets which M. Picault fell in with on the 16th of April, 
1744, in his passage from the island Rodriguez to the Isle Make. The direction 
of his course leads to them; nor is it to be presumed that there has been any essen¬ 
tial difference in this passage. On the preceding evening he found himself off a 
bank in 5 0 55' latitude, where the depth was unequal, from forty-five to eleven* 
nine, twenty-five, and forty fathom. From thence having taken his course to the 
north, he found himself in the midst of twenty-two islets, and passed through them 
in 5 0 3c/ latitude to proceed to the west. From the examination that was made 
of the islets, they were fc*und covered with cocoa-trees, and their elevation was 
from twelve to fifteen feet above the level of the sea. The largest of them was about 
half a league in length : some of them were very small, and entirely surrounded with 
reefs. All the charts, in their representation of this little Archipelago, coincide with 
the plan given of them by M. Picault, under the name of Peros Banbos; but it 
is placed there a degree too much to the south. 
“ The island of Chagas , as well as the shoal waters which are in its environs, was 
seen in the year 1763, by the ship Pitt, in 7 0 15' latitude, and its longitude deter¬ 
mined by an observation made by Mr. Stevens, of the mean distance of the sun and 
moon, in 71° of our longitude, or 73 0 25' east of Greenwich. He discovered also, 
eighteen leagues to the north-west of this island, in 6° 40' latitude, five or six little 
islets, which had been seen in the latter end of December, 1756, by M. de Surville, 
who commanded the ship the Due d’Orleans; and about twenty leagues to the east, 
he found himself on shoal water, such as the ship Pitt had seen, according to a 
draught of it which has been communicated to me, in seven fathom, and three 
leagues to the south-south-east in ten fathom. 
