Note 118 — CHAP. IV.

This isle, or rock, was the single point about which Captain Cook had received the least information at Teneriffe; and we may observe how sagacious he was in tracing it. What he could only speak of as probable, a comparison of his chart with that lately published by Kerguelen, proves to be certain; and if he had even read and copied what his predecessors in the discovery says of it, he could scarcely have varied his account of its shape. Kerguelen’s words are, “Isle de Réunion, qui n’est qu’une roche, nous servoit de rendezvous, ou de point de ralliement; et resemble à un coin de mire.”