[Footnote 2: Discovered in the year 1505, by Don Pedro Mascarequas, a Spanish navigator: he gave it the name of "Cerné." It was uninhabited, and destitute of every species of quadruped. In 1598 it was visited by the Dutch Admiral Van Neck, who finding it unoccupied gave it its present name, in honor of Maurice, Prince of Holland. In 1601 a Frenchman was found on the island by a Dutch captain. He had been left by an English vessel, and had remained two years subsisting on turtle and dates: his understanding was impaired by his long solitude. The Dutch had a small fort, when it was visited by Tasman, which is represented in the drawings that illustrated his journal. The Dutch afterwards abandoned the island, and it has passed through many changes, until it was conquered by Great Britain.--_Grant's History of the Mauritius._]
[Footnote 3: Probably their fires: had they seen them, they could not have fallen into error respecting their height.]
[Footnote 4: "The same romantic little rock, with its fringe of grey ironstone shingle, still shelters itself under the castellated cliffs of trap rock, on its northern and southern horns; embosomed in its innermost recesses by a noble forest, whose green shades encroach upon the verge of the ocean. It is less than half-a-mile across, and nearer its northern than its southern extremity, the sea has cast up a key of large grey rounded ironstone, which interrupts the equal curve of the beach, and doubtless marks the spot where the ship's carpenter swam ashore."--_Gell's Remarks on the First Discovery: Tasmanian Journal_, vol. ii. p. 327.]
[Footnote 6: A folio edition of _Cook's Voyages_, published in the last century, at the "King's Arms," Paternoster-row, London, contains the following sentence, which, as perhaps the first example of invention in reference to the country, may deserve remembrance:--"Stately groves, rivers, and lawns, of vast extent." "Thickets full of birds of the most beautiful plumage, of _various notes, whose melody was truly enchanting_. It was _now_ the time (29th January!) when nature poured forth her luxuriant exuberance, to clothe this country with rich variety."--Vol. ii. p. 425.]
[Footnote 7: _Voyage of Perouse_ (translation). London, 1799.