HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
475 
This island is covered with wood to the very summit of the mountains, and 
abounds with land and sea-turtle, of three hundred pounds weight. On determining 
the situation of it in 1769, by M. Rochon, the adjacent islands appeared to be 
inhabited only by enormous crocodiles; but since that time a small settlement has 
been made there, and the nutmeg and clove cultivated. In one of these islands, 
called Palm Island, is to be seen the tree which bears that well known fruit called 
the cocoa of the Maldives, or the sea-cocoa. 
The circuit of Diego Garcia is twelve leagues, and is in the form of an horse¬ 
shoe ; it is not a mile over in its broadest part, nevertheless the land is sufficiently 
elevated, so as to form a border and shelter to a bason capable of receiving the 
largest fleet: this bason is four leagues in length by one of mean width : this excel¬ 
lent harbour has two good entrances on the north side, and is situated in seven degrees 
fourteen minutes south latitude, and in sixty-eight degrees longitude, east of Paris. 
Although this archipelago is covered with rocks, they are not as yet all known. 
The ancient maps of M. d’Apres do not describe the whole of them. The collection 
of charts of the Isle of France are full of notes, written by M. Rochon, which shew 
that M. d’Apres has confounded Artove with Agalega, and-Corgados with St. 
Brandon, although there were among his papers the different plans of these islands 
and rocks, which contained many errors less obvious, but nevertheless of great 
importance. 
The plan of Corgados had been taken by the boats Charles and Elizabeth, while 
that of St. Brandon is printed in the English pilot. These two dangerous rocks 
differ essentially both as to form and longitude; for they are fifty leagues distant 
from one another. Corgados is in the shape of a crescent, and St. Brandon forms 
an equilateral triangle ; M. d’Apres, confounding these two dangerous islets, has 
given them a mean position in his charts, because he had found them on the ancient 
charts in the same latitude; this position, however, is incorrect, and by no means 
ascertains the course that must be taken to avoid them. M. Rochon adds, on the 
memorable day when Venus passed over the sun’s disk, in the month of June, 1769, 
“ I could not observe the passage of that star, important as it was, though the weather 
was clear and serene, as the vessel in which I was embarked was in danger of 
shipwreck off Corgados: if we could not have doubled the easternmost point of this 
frightful rock we must have perished; I am therefore justified in resisting the 
general opinion of the charts of M. d’Apres.” 
3 P 2 
