The resources offered by this country to sportsmen were mediocre in the extreme. They did indeed catch sight of a few boars or wild pigs, but it was impossible to hit them. To make up for this they shot most beautiful pigeons, the bodies and necks of grey-white, and of golden green plumage, turtle-doves, parroquets, crested birds, and a species of crow, whose cry was so like the baying of a dog, as to be mistaken for it. The trees were large and magnificent, amongst them the betel, the areca, and the pepper-tree. Malignant reptiles swarm in these marshy lands, and in the ancient forests, serpents, scorpions, and other venomous reptiles abounded. Unfortunately, they were not only to be found on land. A sailor in search of _marteaux_, a very rare kind of bivalve mussel, was stung by a serpent. The fearful suffering and violent convulsions which followed only subsided at the expiration of five or six hours, and at last, the theriac which was administered to him after the bite, effected a cure. This accident was a sad damper to conchological enthusiasm. Upon the 22nd, after a severe storm, the ships were sensible of several slight earthquakes, the sea rose and fell several times in succession, which greatly alarmed the sailors who were occupied in fishing. In spite of the rain and ceaseless storms which continued daily, a detachment started to search the interior for Bourbon palms, palm-trees, and turtle-doves. They expected to find wonders, but returned oftenest empty-handed and with the one result of being wet to the skin. A natural curiosity at some distance from the anchorage, a thousand times more beautiful than the wonders invented for the ornament of kingly palaces, attracted numberless visitors, who could never tire of admiring it. It was a waterfall, too beautiful for description! To form any idea of its beauty, it would be necessary to reproduce by the brush the sparkling gleam of the spray lit up by the rays of the sun, the vaporous shade of the tropical trees which dipped their branches into the water, and the fantastic display of light over a magnificent country, not yet spoiled by the hand of man!