HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
399 
Isle of France, June 23, 1761. 
* # # (t j have f ounc [ an observation on the departure of Venus, made by our 
friend M. de Seligny,* and I have made use of it to determine the meridian where 
I was when I observed Venus. This officer, who is a very good and zealous astro¬ 
nomer, has an excellent pendulum with seconds, and knows how to employ it.” 
On the high Seas. 
“ The ships which go to China having got to the 118th meridian of TenerifFe, 
on the 34th or 35th parallel, are then very near the land of New Holland, and con¬ 
sequently enough to the east not to be in a situation to miss the Strait of Sunda, 
but from ignorance or neglect. It is also at 118° of longitude that these vessels 
begin to turn, by the aid of the south-east wind, towards the island of Java, and 
endeavour to stand in to the middle of it. This precaution is absolutely necessary, 
in order to get to the windward of the strait, for if a ship gets to the leeward, it is 
very improbable she would be able to enter it; the voyage would be lost; and the 
only resource that is left would be to proceed to the windward, in order to gain 
the Strait of Malacca, if the season should not be too much advanced. 
(i We entered into the line of the south-east winds, which we found towards 30° 
of latitude. While we kept the latitudes of 34 0 and 35 0 , we had very high seas; 
but if the waves were very high, they were at the same time so long, that their 
extremities were lost in the distance, in the same manner as those which are found 
on the other side of Africa when we have passed the tropic of Capricorn, to double 
the Cape of Good Hope. When we had got into the variable winds we had no 
more of these long waves, but found in their place a short divided sea.. 
“ The European seas are also very long, as well as all those which extend from 
this part of the world to the Cape of Good Hope. These long seas are not so 
dangerous as the short ones. Off the Cape of Good Hope the sea'is almost always 
agitated by enormous waves, which encounter each other in two and sometimes 
three different directions ; forming the highest seas as yet known in any part of the 
globe. Seamen who have passed Cape Horn in bad weather, and the Cape of Good 
Hope, have universally declared, that if the waves ran equally high at Cape Horn 
as they do at the Cape of Good Hope, the former would be absolutely impassable, 
because the wind blows there with greater force. When you have doubled the 
* M. de Seligny was an officer in the sea service of the India Company. 
