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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 mid-day 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 oi
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 Mahe, 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.