Our voyage from Port Darwin to Singapore took place during the interval of calms which separates the north-west and the south-east monsoons, so that we were enabled to steam the entire distance of 2,000 miles in smooth water. Our course lay among the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. On the 5th of November we sighted Timor Island, and on the following morning passed to the northward of its eastern extremity, and then steered westward, having Timor on our port hand, and the small island of Wetter to starboard. From that date, the chain of islands which extends in a north-west direction from Timor right up to the Malay Peninsula was continually in sight. After dusk on the 7th, we saw away on our port beam, and towering up into the blue and starlit sky, the conical mountain which forms the island of Komba. On the 10th, as we passed to the northward of Sumbawa, we had a fine view of Tambora, a great volcanic pile 9,040 feet in height. On the same day a handsome bird of the Gallinula tribe flew on board, and came into my possession. On the following day a large swift of the genus ChÆtura shared the same fate. On the morning of the 12th we passed through the strait which separates the islands of Sapodie and Madura, and as we emerged from its northern outlet found ourselves in the midst of a large fleet of Malay fishing boats, of which no less than seventy were in sight at one time. These boats were long narrow crafts, fitted with double outriggers, and having lofty curved bows and sterns. They carried a huge triangular sail, which, when going before the wind, is set right athwart-ships with the apex downwards, and when beating seemed to be used like a reversible Fiji sail. On November 17th we passed through the long strait which lays between the islands of Banka and Sumatra, and on the afternoon of the following day dropped our anchor in the roadstead of Singapore.

We made a stay of two and a half months at the great commercial city of Singapore, and for the greater part of the time our ship lay at the Tanjon Paggar dockyard, where she underwent a thorough overhaul, while officers and men had abundant opportunities for relaxation and amusements.

On February 5th, 1882, we again got under way, and quitting the eastern Archipelago by the Straits of Malacca, steered for Ceylon. On the 10th of February, in latitude 6° 15' N., longitude 93° 30' E., we passed through several remarkable patches of broken water, resembling "tiderips." There was a light northerly breeze, and the general surface of the sea was smooth, so that these curious patches could be distinctly seen when a couple of miles ahead of us, and as we entered each one the noise of tumbling foaming waters was so loud as to attract one's attention forcibly, even when sitting down below in the ward-room. The patches were for the most part disposed in curves and more or less complete circles of half-a-mile in diameter, so that at a distance they bore a strong resemblance to lines of breakers. Soundings were taken, but no inequality in the sea-bed was observed sufficient to account for them. They were most probably due to circular currents revolving in opposite directions, and producing the broken water at their points of contact.

We stopped for two days, February the 17th and 18th, at Colombo, the capital of Ceylon, and then steered for the "Eighth Degree Channel," north of the Maldive Islands, after passing through which we shaped a straight course for the Seychelle Islands.

On the morning of the 4th of March land was reported right ahead; but as we soon found out with our glasses, all that was really visible above the horizon was a big tree, which by an optical delusion appeared to be of a prodigious size, and on account of the absence of the usual appearance of land was thought by some of us to be only a sail. We were at this time about ten miles to the north-east of Bird Island, the most northerly of the Seychelle Group. About midday we anchored in seven fathoms off the western end of the island, some dozen or so large gannets coming off to meet us, and hovering inquisitively about the ship.

Soon after, a party of officers, including myself, proceeded to land. On touching the beach we were met by a pair of negroes, who, we learned, formed the entire human population of the island. They occupied some wretched huts which had been hitherto screened from our view by a dense thicket of bushes, which forms a fringe around the margin of the island, and gives it, from the anchorage, the delusive appearance of being well wooded.

Their occupation consisted in catching and drying fish, and in salting, for consumption at MahÉ, the bodies of sea-birds, which breed on the island in vast numbers, and which are easily taken on their nests during the breeding season—now just coming to an end. The negroes spoke a French dialect, and, whether owing to their habitual taciturnity, or to linguistic difficulties on our part, we could not succeed in extracting much information from them. We gathered, however, that turtle visited the island for breeding purposes, but not at this time of the year.

Bird Island is half-a-mile long, and a quarter of a mile in width, being thus more or less oval in outline. It is formed entirely of coral, and is margined all round with white glistening beaches of calcareous sand. Outside this extends a fringing reef, which forms a submerged platform, on which there is some three or four fathoms of water, and which has a mean width radially of about a quarter of a mile. There is no encircling barrier reef, while the soundings are so regular as to exclude the existence of coral knolls. The general surface of the island is quite flat, and has a mean elevation above the sea-level of about eight feet. Immediately within the sandy beach above mentioned is a raised inner beach composed of blown sand and lumps of coral, on which flourishes a belt of low green Tournefortia bushes. After traversing this, one walks over a rugged plain of honeycombed coral rock, the interstices of which are in some places filled with sand and vegetable mould, which supports a more or less general mantle of scrubby grass, interspersed with several introduced plants gone wild. Among these were cotton, sugarcane, papaws, yams, gourds, cocoa-nuts, and perhaps a few others. It appeared that none of these had been found to thrive, which no doubt accounts for their present neglected state. We now ascertained that the large tree which had attracted our attention from the offing was a Casuarina, of which there were altogether two or perhaps three on the island.

There were no land-birds. Sea-birds, however, were very abundant, and seemed in many ways to have partially adapted themselves to the habits of their terrestrial congeners. The sand and light soil, which in some places occupied the cavities in the coral rock, were everywhere excavated by the burrows of petrels, so that within an area of four square yards one might count as many as a dozen. There were also smaller burrows—not admitting the hand—in one of which I captured a land-crab. Walking over the island—small as it was—proved to be very fatiguing and aggravating, for after one had extracted a bruised ankle from some treacherous hole in the coral, which the long grass concealed, the next step, taken with misplaced confidence on an inviting-looking patch of sand, would probably put the other foot through the frail roof of a petrel burrow, into which it would descend, to the alarm and indignation of its proper tenant, no less than to the mortification of the explorer.

Many gannets were breeding on the island. I approached a large brown bird as it sat on its nest, and, being anxious to obtain a specimen of the egg, endeavoured to frighten it off by going within a couple of yards and shouting riotously. The bird, however, did not seem to heed me. I then tried stones, but with no better result. Eventually I had to resort to sterner measures, which I forbear to mention, but which proved satisfactory. The nest consisted of a few twigs and pieces of withered grass, placed on the surface of the hard coral.

The terns, of which there were great numbers, either standing quietly on the ground in flocks or perched singly on the low bushes, had just concluded their breeding labours, and I found a few abandoned eggs. Their nests were similar to those of the gannet above mentioned. Consorting with the terns and gannets were multitudes of white egrets, stalking about unconcernedly in the long dry grass, or perching in a dreamy sort of way on the topmost twigs of the bushes. All these birds, terns, gannets, and egrets, seemed to be quite as much at home when perching on the bushes or standing in the grass as in their usual attitude on the wing. They seemed indeed very loth to fly, and after being rudely disturbed soon settled down again. The beaches of the weather or east side of the island were studded with great flocks of turnstones and curlews, with which were a few oyster-catchers, and soaring high overhead was a great flock of frigate birds.

At an early hour on the following morning (March 5th) we were again under way, and steering towards Port MahÉ, which lies sixty miles to the southward of Bird Island. The dredge had been laid out from the stern of the ship soon after anchoring, and on hauling it up just before weighing, one of the tangles was found to have attached to it a large slab of dead coral, which contained a great variety of forms of life. There were on its surface several detached masses of growing Corals, comprising five or six different species, and an equal number of Polyzoa, besides some Nullipores and Millepores. In the interstices were several species of shells, worms, and Ophiurids, and two or three species of sponge.

At three o'clock in the afternoon we anchored at MahÉ, the chief island of the Seychelle Group.

Seychelles, a term which is used to comprise the group of eighty islands, has been a British colony since the year 1794, when it was taken from the French by force of arms. Most of the land is in the possession of descendants of the old French settlers, men who have the reputation of being devoid of enterprise, and of squandering the produce of their land in habits of dissipation. We were told that among the upper classes there were only about six Englishmen in the group, including the governor, secretary, and doctor, etc. By a census taken in 1880, the total population was 14,035, of which 2,029 was represented by African negroes. The population of the chief island, MahÉ, alone amounted to 11,393, so that there remains less than 3,000 to be divided among the remaining islands of the Group. The total has since been increasing, owing to a stream of immigration having set in from Mauritius, where there exists a commercial depression; so that at the time of our visit it was said to amount to 18,000.

I think that to most people Seychelles is principally known as the home of that eccentric palm, the double cocoa-nut, or "Coco de Mer." Its range is indeed very restricted, being, in fact, limited to Praslin,—one of the smaller islands of the Group,—and even there it only grows in one particular valley. A few have been introduced into MahÉ, and great care is now being taken in order to promote their extension. There was a handsome specimen of the female tree growing in the grounds of Government House, which was shown to me by Mr. Brodie, the courteous Secretary to the Council. The tree being unisexual, isolated specimens can only be made fruitful by artificial means. In the present instance, the tree being over thirty years old, and in the proper condition for impregnation, Mr. Brodie had taken the trouble to obtain from Praslin the reproductive portion of a male plant, which he had placed over the immature fruits on the female tree. The male tree bears a long thick spike, studded with minute flowers, the pollen from which must be shaken over the female flowers, in order to insure impregnation. The tree at MahÉ was about twenty feet high, but I was informed by Mr. Brodie that fully grown trees in the island of Praslin attain a height of a hundred feet. The mature nuts if left on the ground readily germinate. The outer hard covering splits at the sulcus of the nut, and from thence shoots out a rhizome, which after extending underground for a few feet gives origin to the future stem and rootlets, which proceed respectively upwards and downwards from the termination of the rhizome. The Coco de Mer is an article of trade, a good many being brought over annually to MahÉ, where some are sold to visitors as curiosities, while the remainder are shipped to the Red Sea ports to be sold to the Arabs, who have a profound belief in their medicinal properties.

In the gardens of Government House were also two fine examples of the celebrated Land Tortoise of Aldabra, an animal which, although indigenous in Aldabra Island alone, has of late years been introduced into many of the neighbouring islands. The pair at MahÉ were male and female, and weighed respectively about four hundred and five hundred pounds. The male seemed to have no difficulty in bearing a man upon his back. At the time of our visit the female had just commenced to lay, depositing her eggs in holes which she excavated in the damp soil, and carefully filled in.

From a commercial point of view, the Seychelle Islands are now in a transition state. The cocoa-nut industry has of late years been unprosperous, mainly owing to the ravages of a worm which invades the roots and stem of the cocoa-nut trees, and causes them to dwindle and perish. The produce of oil has consequently been so reduced, and the freight charges continue to be so high, on account of the absence of steamship competition, that only a small margin of profit is left to the planter. This failure of the cocoa-nuts has led to a revival of the old spice industry, which, under the early French settlers, was at one time deemed likely to vie with that of the Moluccas. On looking over the Blue Book Report, I find that in the year 1880 there were 12,000 acres of land planted with cocoa-nuts, which in spite of the recent blight continue to be the staple product of the Group. In the same year there were one hundred and fifty acres devoted to the growth of vanilla; a hundred acres were planted with cacao bushes, and a hundred and fifty were producing cloves; besides a large extent of land bearing coffee plantations. Both the Liberian and the common coffee plants have been introduced, and found to grow remarkably well. Vanilla, in particular, seems to find a congenial home in the Seychelle Islands, and, during our short visit to the colony, we gathered that the future hopes of the settlers were mainly centred upon the successful cultivation of this plant. It grows rapidly, and although the flowers require to be fertilized by hand, yet this process is so readily performed that beans of large size and excellent quality are produced. It is as yet only grown in a small way, most of the vanilleries, as these plantations are called, covering only an extent of about five acres. It is estimated that each plantation of this size represents an annual produce of two hundred and fifty pounds' weight of vanilla beans. We inspected some plants in the garden of Dr. Brookes, an old resident, and noticed that the beans averaged eight inches in length, and were otherwise well formed. He told us that he had been most successful in the curing of these beans, and expected that when they became well known they would command a large price in the European markets, and that eventually vanilla would become the staple produce of the Seychelle Islands.

The method employed at Seychelles for the expression of the oil from the internal white lining of the cocoa-nut struck me as being novel and primitive; and as it is said to be very efficient, I shall try to give an intelligible description of a crushing mill and its mode of construction. In principle it is a sort of gigantic pestle and mortar, in which the pestle is made to perform a movement of circumduction, and whilst doing so to rotate against the sides of the mortar, where the crushing process is effected. A large-stemmed tree of very hard wood having been cut down, so as to leave about three feet of the trunk projecting above the ground, a bucket-shaped cavity is excavated in the stump. A heavy round spar about ten feet in length is stepped into this cavity, and is made to incline forcibly to one side by means of a wooden outrigger, which is supported by a rope attached to the head of the spar, and is weighted with heavy stones placed at its outer extremity. The inner end of the outrigger is fitted with wide U-shaped jaws, which engage in a collar scored in the tree stump just above its point of emergence from the ground, while the rope-lift which supports its outer extremity is so attached to the head of the upright spar that the outrigger may be free to move radially about the stump at the same time that the upright spar rolls round on its long axis, as it presses heavily against the sides of the trough. Finally a small hole is bored laterally, so as to reach the bottom of the cavity in the tree stump, and into this is thrust a short bamboo tube to act as an oil-tap. The broken-up copra is thrown in around the lower extremity of the upright spar, and a bullock is set to work to drag round the outrigger arrangement. The only attendance required is that of a small boy to feed the wooden trough with copra, and occasionally to throw stones so as to accelerate the otherwise lazy motion of the bullock. In the mill which I examined the oil was flowing steadily from the bamboo tap in a clear limpid stream.

We dredged several times with the steam-cutter in the channel between MahÉ and St. Anne's Island, and also in St. Anne's Channel. The depth of water in these channels ranged from four to twelve fathoms, and the bottom consisted of sand and coral. The fauna was abundant, and comprised Shells of the genera Murex, Arca; large grey Holothurians; Echinoderms of four or five species; Crustacea of the genera Thalamita, Galathea, Porcellana, Atergatis, Scylla, Alpheus, etc., and a large variety of Corals and Polyzoa.

One of the most conspicuous objects about the foreshore at Port MahÉ is a curious fish of the genus Periophthalmus, which may be seen not only jumping about the dry mud flats at low water, but also climbing up the rugged vertical faces of the blocks of granite of which the sea-wall and pier are formed. It is very difficult indeed to catch one, as I have good reason to know. Associated with them were several species of crabs, among which I recognized representatives of the genera Macrophthalmus, Gelasimus, Grapsus, and Ocypoda.

The Seychelles are peculiar in being the only small tropical oceanic islands of granitic structure. All the others, excepting St. Paul's Rocks, are either of volcanic or coral formation. The rock about Port MahÉ is a syenitic granite, in which the mica of ordinary granite is replaced by hornblende. In some cases the felspar is coloured blue, in others reddish, and in every instance it occurred in large coarse crystals. The soilcap was a reddish pasty clay, of great thickness. In one of the road cuttings near the settlement a section of this clay fully ten feet in depth was exposed.

We left MahÉ on the 14th of March, and on the following day anchored off a small coral islet, the northernmost of the Amirante Group. This, with another similar islet adjoining, constitute the African Islands. A party of surveyors immediately landed in order to fix on a suitable place for taking midnight observations of the stars, and I had soon afterwards an opportunity of landing to explore. The islet is two hundred yards long, by about sixty yards in width, is more or less elliptical in outline, low, and flat, and for about three-fourths of its circumference is girt by a smooth beach of coral sand, on the surface of which I noticed a prodigious number of Orbitolites discs. The northern end of the islet is composed of upraised coral sandstone, which has been grooved and honeycombed into various fantastic shapes, so that for walking over it presents quite as unsatisfactory a surface as volcanic clinker. All the central part of the islet within the inner drift beach is covered with scrubby grass and low bushes of the same character as those at Bird Island. There were one or two young shoots of a Barringtonia; but nothing else in the shape of an arborescent plant. Among the dead shells, light driftwood, and bleached sponges and coral blown up on the inner beach, I noticed some of the familiar rhomboidal fruits of a Barringtonia.

There were no land-birds. The sea-birds were identical with those of Bird Island. Young unfledged gannets were waddling about among the bushes, and as regards the other birds, their nesting season also seemed to be over. I did not notice any petrel burrows, but everywhere near the beach were the burrows of a littoral crab, a species of the genus Ocypoda. On the rocks at the northern extremity were multitudes of the widely distributed Grapsus variegatus. When chasing them over the rocks of the foreshore, I observed that they were reluctant to take to the water, but preferred to keep clear of me by scampering away over the coral further inshore. The cause of this strange behaviour on their part soon became apparent; for the rock-pools about the foreshore were tenanted by savage grey eels, ranging in length from two to three feet, and I saw that the moment an unlucky crab was forced to enter one of these pools, he was immediately snapped up and devoured. I was surprised to see the coolness with which an eel would every now and then raise its head above the water in which it lay, and look about over the adjacent rocks to see if any crabs were near. On starting an eel from its hiding place, it would scuttle with astonishing rapidity over the low rocks which separated it from the water's edge, so that it was no easy matter to secure one without the aid of a gun. Shooting them, as they wriggled off in this way, was rather good sport.

The island is evidently visited by turtle during the breeding season, for we saw several of the excavations in which they were in the habit of depositing their eggs.

We got under way at seven o'clock in the morning, and after running several lines of soundings over the outer edge of the Amirante bank, steamed over to Eagle Island, which lies about thirteen miles to the southward of African Islands, and again dropped anchor.

Eagle Island is somewhat oval in shape, and is a quarter of a mile long by one-eighth in breadth. It is entirely of coral formation, is low and flat, is covered with a thick growth of stunted bushes, and in other physical features is much the same as the African Islands. There was, however, an increase in the fauna in the shape of a small red-legged partridge, which was very abundant, and afforded us some good shooting. Owing to the thickness of the scrub, and weedy undergrowth of grasses, ill-conditioned gourds and calabashes, it was found very difficult to recover the dead birds, so that I fear there were a good many shot which were never bagged. The only other land-birds on the island were domestic fowls gone wild. Of these we saw an old cock and hen, and some three or four chickens, which, on being disturbed, rose and took to flight like pheasants.

In the interior of the island, among a tangled scrub of bushes, we found the remains of an old stone-built hut, which from the solidity of its four walls would seem to have been originally intended as a permanent dwelling for Europeans.

I took several specimens of a small species of lizard, and also some of the tiny spherical eggs of the same. I stowed away the eggs in a matchbox with some sand, and left it open on the table of the deckhouse on board. After a day or two the young lizards began to break out of their eggs, and to wander about among the materials on my work-table. I broke open one egg, and found that the youngster was at once able to run about. After it had wandered about the table, and up and down the sides of some bottles standing near, it returned to the matchbox and remained for a long time hovering about it, as if terrified at the immensity of the world, and loth to venture away from its former narrow dwelling.

In some small holes about the centre of the islet we found a land-crab, apparently similar to that of Bird Island; and from some large burrows issued the peculiar groaning sounds made by the night petrel.

One of the most singular features in the zoology of the islet was the abundance of a hermit crab,—occupying a Neritina shell,—which was to be seen and heard creeping over the stems and branches of the bushes in all directions. They seemed for the time to have entirely adopted terrestrial habits.

We got under way again on the morning of the 20th of March, and, after spending the day in sounding from the ship, steamed up to Darros Island, and again anchored.

This island is somewhat circular in shape, and has a maximum diameter of three-quarters of a mile. It is inhabited by a Frenchman and his wife, who are assisted by nine negro labourers from MahÉ. Adjoining are nine small islets, bearing a rich crop of cocoa-nuts. Darros Island itself as yet produces next to nothing, but it contains a large plantation of young cocoa-nuts, which in five or six years will doubtless be productive. Immediately behind the Frenchman's house, and affording an agreeable shade, was a handsome grove of Casuarinas about eighty feet in height. They were nineteen years old, as we subsequently ascertained. Many introduced plants—such as papaws, cotton, pumpkin, etc.—were growing in a neglected state over the island.

We dredged from the ship as she lay at anchor in twenty-one to twenty-two fathoms, over a bottom which was mainly composed of coral dÉbris, and among the living organisms brought up were three species of stony corals. This circumstance is of interest as regards the bathymetrical distribution of corals, inasmuch as Dana, judging from the results of observations made by various authorities, considers that twenty fathoms may be regarded as the limit in depth at which reef-forming corals live. Polyzoa were numerous. I noticed representatives of the genera Retepora, Crisia, Eschara, Cellepora, Lepralia, and Myriozoum. There were also some examples of Sertularia and other flexible hydroids.

Our gropings over the platform of fringing reef, which formed the foreshore at low water, resulted in the acquisition of several species of holothurians. Among these was a large Synapta, which was abundant, and a very tough-skinned holothurian—of the genus Moliria—provided with organs resembling teeth at its posterior extremity.

On March 23rd we moved over to Poivre Island—a few miles distant—where we anchored, and remained for part of two days.

Poivre Island was colonized for the first time in the year 1820. It is now the property of a Frenchman residing at Paris, and is managed by his agent, a Monsieur Bertaut, who, with his wife and family, and some twenty negroes and their wives, form the population of the island, altogether amounting to twenty-seven. Of course the staple produce is cocoa-nut oil, and the island having been planted with cocoa-nuts at an early period in its history, the trees are in good condition for bearing, and cover every available spot of ground. Among the other trees on the island I noticed a Casuarina and a Ficus. Two shrubs were common; one, called the "Bois d'Aimanthe" (Suriana maritima), formed a sort of hedge around the island, and the other was a Tournefortia, which seems to be the first plant to establish itself on these islands. The fauna included a black-and-white rabbit—of course introduced—which was very abundant, and some pigeons of a dark-brown plumage. Pigs and domestic poultry seemed to be largely favoured by the colonists, and were indeed in a thriving state.

Like all the Amirantes, Poivre Island is low and flat, and is only exceptional in being the most prosperous island of the group, for which it is indebted to the zeal of the earlier colonists who planted its splendid grove of cocoa-nuts. The island is oval in shape, about two miles in circumference, and it has a broad fringing reef composed of drift coral and sand, but exhibiting no live corals and very few shells.

We cast anchor off the north-west side of Isle des Roches on the evening of the 25th of March, and stayed there for four days. This is the largest island of the Amirante Group, being three and a half miles long, and having an average width of half-a-mile. It is visible for a long distance off, on account of its possessing several large groves of tall Casuarina trees, many of which are one hundred and eleven feet in height. On the shore, immediately opposite to our anchorage, was the settlement, which then exhibited a rather desolate appearance, as many of the houses were in an abandoned condition, most of the inhabitants having recently gone back to Seychelles. Only two individuals remained, French creoles, who seemed to have acquired, from their solitary situation, habits of taciturnity, which they found it difficult to break through. At all events, we could not succeed in extracting much information from them. They were well off for supplies, having a large stock of pigs and poultry, besides fruit and vegetables. Cocoa-nuts had been planted extensively, but as yet few of these trees were old enough to bear fruit. At the time of our visit, the natives were engaged in planting vanilla cuttings about the bases of the casuarina trees, which furnished excellent supports for the creeper to attach itself to.

The flora was more extensive than that of the other islands. There was a large-leafed shrub with thick branches like cabbage-stalks, the ScÆvola koenigii, which over ran the island. There were also herbaceous plants of the families MalvaceÆ, SolanaceÆ, CinchonaceÆ, and ConvolvulaceÆ. Among the trees I noticed a Ficus, which, however, may have been introduced; and here I obtained the only fern met with among the Amirantes, the Nephrolepis exaltata; it was growing near the sea beach at the eastern end of the island.

There were six land-birds: viz., a red-legged partridge, a pigeon, a large brown finch, and a small yellow-breasted finch, a red-capped weaver-bird, and a waxbill (?). Of these I could only obtain specimens of the small finch and the weaver-bird. The yellow-breasted finch is gregarious, and mostly frequents the tops of the cocoa-nut trees and the upper branches of the tall casuarinas, where it keeps up an incessant melody of song, pleasant to the ear in the variety and succession of the notes, and somewhat resembling the song of the canary. In the large casuarina grove, near the western end of the island, I succeeded, but with much difficulty, in procuring some male specimens of the weaver-bird (Foudia madagascariensis). The females were nesting. I observed one of the latter flying away from the tree in which its nest was constructed, and from which I had disturbed it. It differed from the male in having the red-coloured feathers confined to the head, the rest of the plumage being of a dull brown. The nest was an oblong affair, having a lateral opening, and was constructed of a parasitic plant of creeping habit, which the creoles use for making a substitute for tea. The nest hung from the extremity of a casuarina branch which projected horizontally. The male bird was to be seen perched singly on the summits of the large casuarinas, where it made its presence known by a peculiar and characteristic twittering note which it emits about four times in a minute. It was very wary, and difficult to approach within a sixty yards' range, so that it was only by most careful stalking that I could succeed in bringing down a specimen. The brown finch was not abundant, and seemed to confine its range to the plantations of young cocoa-nuts, where it was continually shifting its perch. The waxbill was a very small bird, which was to be seen every now and then flitting in large flocks among the maize plants and low bushes. I was much surprised to find that the four small birds above mentioned were so very wary, as there were no predatory birds on the island, and it was unlikely that they had ever been shot at before. Nevertheless, the motion of raising one's gun at a distance of sixty yards or more was enough to scare away any of them.

The partridge was identical with that already seen at Eagle and Darros Islands. The pigeon, which I have included among the list of the birds, I saw only once. But one of the creoles living on the island told me that it was an indigenous species, and was quite distinct from the domestic pigeons which roost about and restrict their range to the houses and trees about the settlement.

Although this island has been classed as one of the Amirante Group, it would be more correct to look upon it as distinct and apart from the main group, inasmuch as the bank on which it rests is separated from the Amirante bank by a deep water channel eleven miles wide. We sounded across this channel, and obtained no bottom with one hundred fathoms of line. Isle des Roches is, moreover, peculiar in forming part of an atoll, most of which is submerged, and is covered with from two to five fathoms of water. The circumscribed patch of deep water in the interior has a depth of about fifteen fathoms.

During the week subsequent to our departure from Isle des Roches, we anchored successively off the four remaining islets of the group; viz., Etoile, Marie-Louise, Des Neufs, and Boudeuse. They are mere cays, formed of coral and drift sand, and are uninhabited. Owing to the heavy surf which broke all round their shores, we found it unsafe to land.

With our brief visit to the islets just mentioned our survey of the Amirante Group came to an end. I will, therefore, before quitting the subject, make a few general remarks on the group as a whole. The Amirante Group consists altogether of twenty-one low coral islets, resting (with the exception of Isle des Roches, which is on a separate bank) on an extensive coral bank, whose long axis lies in a north-north-east and south-south-west direction, and is eighty-nine miles in length, with an average breadth of nineteen miles. It is included between the limits of 4° 501/2' and 6° 121/2' south latitude, and 53° 45' and 52° 501/2' east longitude, and is about seven hundred miles distant from the nearest part of the East African coast. Some of the islets and cays of which it is composed, and which are included in the above enumeration, are so grouped into clusters, that for all practical purposes the group may be considered as consisting of nine islets, which have been named African Island, Eagle Island, Darros Island, Poivre Island, Des Roches Island, Etoile Island, Marie-Louise Island, Des Neufs Island, and Boudeuse Island. Of these only three are inhabited; viz., Darros (including the adjoining islet "St. Joseph," which is occupied by part of the same establishment of creoles), Poivre Island, and Isle des Roches; the population consisting of French creoles and negroes imported from Seychelles, who make a livelihood by cultivating cocoa-nuts, and altogether do not exceed forty in number. The islets are all low and flat, are formed entirely of coral and coral-sandstone, and their general surface has an altitude above high-water mark not exceeding fifteen feet, while in the case of African Island, the lowest, it is not more than seven feet. Most of them, however, are conspicuous from a long distance at sea, on account of their possessing clumps and groves of casuarina trees, which tower to heights ranging from eighty to one hundred and eleven feet above the soil, as ascertained by trigonometrical measurement. The casuarinas at Darros Island, which were eighty feet in height, had been planted nineteen years prior to the time of our visit by a Frenchman named Hoyaeux, whom we subsequently met at Providence Island.

All the islets above mentioned possess "fringing reefs," but are distinguished from the coral islets of the South Pacific, and of the other parts of the Indian Ocean, by the entire absence of "barrier reefs." The soundings which we made over the Amirante bank showed a general uniformity in the contour of its surface; whilst at the same time there was abundant evidence that the central portions were more depressed than the margins. Soundings in the latter situation gave a depth ranging from ten to fourteen fathoms, and as each line of soundings reached the central depressed area of the bank, a depth of about thirty fathoms. The islands were for the most part situated near the margin of the bank, and were in every case surrounded by a zone of shallow water. Hence it is obvious that if the entire structure were suddenly to undergo an elevation of about fourteen fathoms, or eighty-four feet, it would present the appearance of an atoll studded with comparatively lofty islets, and enclosing a lagoon of still water sixteen fathoms in depth.

The outer edge of the bank was exceedingly abrupt, for within a ship's length the soundings changed from ten or fourteen fathoms on the margin, to no bottom with one hundred fathoms of line immediately outside the edge. This precipitous character of the reef-edge was found to be the same throughout its entire extent. At various points over this area growing corals were obtained at depths ranging from twelve to twenty-two fathoms, the latter being somewhat greater than the limit in depth at which it is generally agreed that reef-forming corals can live. It therefore follows, that if the entire bank were now to subside bodily at a faster rate than the corals can by their growth raise the surface upwards, these organisms would soon be immersed below their natural limit, and would consequently die. But we have no evidence of a subsidence having occurred, beyond the fact that the bank, as a whole, bears a resemblance to a submerged atoll, while on the other hand there are some positive evidences of elevation to be seen in the overlying islands. At Eagle Island, the general surface—that is to say, all the land within the inner, or coral-drift beach—is level, and consists of dead coral in situ; so that if denuded of its present covering of low vegetable growth, it would present much the same appearance that a broad platform of fringing reef might, if elevated above high-water mark and allowed to remain exposed to the weather for a few years. The same is the case as regards the greater part of one of the African Islands which we visited; while its northern extremity was composed of upraised coral sandstone, standing in situ, and exhibiting excavated grottoes and jagged pinnacles, resulting from old marine degradation. It may therefore be inferred that these two islands have been subjected to a movement of elevation to the extent of at least a few feet at some period subsequent to the formation of their present reef-coral surfaces. Again, at Isle des Roches, which, however, it should be remembered lies on a separate, although adjacent bank, there were along its south-eastern margin stratified beds of hard coral sandstone occupying a position above high-water mark, and presenting to seaward an abrupt eroded face of hard rock which was undergoing degradation, and was being undermined by the action of the waves on a soft subjacent stratum. As regards the other islands of the group, I have seen no evidence of elevation beyond the fact that they are higher than either African or Eagle Island; one of the most southerly being as much as fifteen feet above high-water mark. I may add that the absence of "barrier reefs" throughout the group militates against the probability of subsidence having taken place. There is, therefore, reason to believe that the entire group have undergone elevation rather than subsidence; and if the forces which produced this condition be still in operation, and continue so until a further elevation of fourteen fathoms has been effected, there will result an atoll over eighty miles long by twenty in width, and studded with lofty coral islands, somewhat resembling the high islands of the south-eastern Paumotus, such as Elizabeth Island, which Dana describes as being eighty feet in height.

The Amirante Group furnishes an illustration of the generally accepted position that corals grow more luxuriantly on the weather than on the lee side of banks and reefs. In this region, a wind, varying in direction between east and south-east, prevails throughout ten months of the year, and consequently gives rise to a proportionately constant surface current; and, on looking at the grouping of the islets, we find that of the eight which rest upon the same bank, six are situated on or about its eastern margin, while the remaining two, which are placed on its south-western side, are comparatively insignificant sand-cays. Again, Isle des Roches, which rests on a bank to the eastward of the Amirantes, from which it is separated by a deep-water channel eleven miles wide, is situated on the eastern, or weather margin of its own bank—also a partially-submerged atoll.