33® 
HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
CHAPTER XIY. 
The Course by the East of Madagascar , during the Period that the South-west 
Monsoon prevails in India , extracted from M. d'Apres. 
II X 
you should not choose to go to India by the channel of Mozambique , you may 
equally make your passage by the east of Madagascar. This track is better suited 
to ships which cannot reach the channel before the 15th of August, on account of the 
feeble winds, calms, and variable weather which prevail there in that season, instead 
of the fresh winds that never fail to blow to the eastward. In case you should 
want to put into any port for water and refreshments, which long voyages render 
sometimes indispensable, they may be easily procured at Fort Dauphin , at Foul 
Pointe , and other places on the east coast of Madagascar. 
" To make this passage, after having doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and being 
secure of your point from the view of the cape, or the soundings of the bank des 
Aiguilles , you will continue to get to the east, on the parallel which I have men¬ 
tioned, as far as 44 0 or 45 0 of longitude. From thence steering to the north-east, 
and afterwards to the north-north-east, (an allowance being made for the variation 
and the drift) you will proceed to join the parallel from 26° to 25 0 of latitude by 
50° of longitude j and this precaution appears to me to be sufficient to prevent the 
errors of ordinary navigation. * 
* “ It were to be wished that those who have the command of vessels, or at least those who may 
contribute to the right direction of them, by their opinions, were qualified to determine the longitude 
at sea, by the distance of the moon from the sun or stars, which gives a sufficient approximation 
to perceive and avoid the errors of reckoning. The English Nautical Almanac, whose Ephemeris 
has given, since the year 1774, an extract of every thing that is most essential for these observa¬ 
tions, abridges, in a great degree, the labour of calculation, as well as many other books, which 
have been published in England on this subject, and render this method intelligible to well informed 
pilots. A considerable part of the English navigators, as well as many in France, use them at 
this time with success; and nothing can contribute more to the safety of navigation, particu- 
larly when the place of destination is already determined with exactness. The course, then, that I 
