HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
377 
cc 28. I went to make observations at the flag placed at la Decouverte du Fort , 
which was the last of our stations. * 
“ We shall interrupt our journal, at this place, in order to give a description of 
what is most remarkable in the Isle of France. 
Brief Description of the Isle of France . 
“ The Isle of France, first discovered by the Portuguese, who probably carried 
thither the deer, goats, and monkies, which have since multiplied in it, was after¬ 
wards possessed by the Dutch, under the name of the Isle of Mauritius. The great 
number of establishments which that republic maintained in India, occasioned them 
to abandon it in 1712 : and the French, who had long occupied the Isle of Bourbon, 
which is not more than thirty-five or forty leagues from it, did not fail to possess 
themselves of it. 
“ According to my calculation, founded on the geometrical measurement which 
I have made, its outline is ninety thousand six hundred and sixty-eight toises. Its 
greatest diameter, which is nearly north and south, is thirty-one thousand eight 
hundred and ninety toises; and its greatest breadth, which is nearly east and west, is 
twenty-two thousand one hundred and twenty-four toises. Its figure is an irregular 
oval; and the surface contains four hundred and thirty-two thousand six hundred 
and eighty acres, at an hundred perches of twenty feet in length. 
“ This island has two very fine harbours. The least of them, which is called 
Port Louis, is sitpate towards the middle of the western coast ; and there is the prin¬ 
cipal establishment of the India Company. Ships must be towed into it, but they 
may sail out of it with the wind right aft. 
6( The other harbour, which is called the Great Port, or Port Bourbon, is situate 
towards the middle of the eastern coast of the island, and is very capacious and 
secure. Ships may enter it with a leading wind; but the departure from it is diffi¬ 
cult, on account of the prevalence of the south-easterly winds, which blow directly 
into the principal of the two channels which form its openings. Here it was that the 
Dutch established their settlement, and built a fort, which they named Frederic Henry. 
Its foundations, and a part of the walls, still remained in 1753, but they have since 
* The result of all these observations, inserted in the Memoirs of the French Academy, anno' 
5754, p. 118, will be seen hereafter, and the Map of Mauritius, at the beginning of this Work, is 
reduced from it. 
3C 
