After bidding adieu to the Europa, we occupied ourselves in sending aloft studding sails on the fore and main, from the topgallant yards to the deck; the main royal was bent, a mizzen staysail manufactured and bent, and under a cloud of canvass, impelled by the gentle trade-wind, we kept her west-north-west, fully anticipating making Mauritius within a fortnight; but, like most of our bright anticipations, this was doomed to be dashed--the trade-winds, most unusually at this season of the year, persisting in being light, so that it was not until the 21st that we saw the Isle of France. Previous to this, on the 19th, we sighted and passed close by the Island of Rodrique. This small island is seldom visited by whalers for supplies, as there is no accredited American agent resident on it. It however is made famous amongst the whaling fleet, from the fact of a captain of a New Bedford vessel having selected a lady of the island, of French parentage, as his lady love, marrying, and taking her with him to the United States, to the dismay of the fair sex in his native neighborhood, who had set their caps for him. This fact is so well known and widely spread, that I never, whilst in the Indian Ocean, heard the name of the island mentioned, without being compelled, from politeness, to listen to a repetition of the love passage. The following day, at five o’clock in the afternoon, we sighted a school of sperm whales, consisting of cows and calves. After several hours chasing, we were obliged to relinquish the pursuit as futile. On the afternoon of the 23d we stood close in to the land composing the Isle of France; it is rugged and mountainous, covered by immense fields of nature’s own green, which we judged to be the different plantations of coffee and sugar-cane, for which the island is celebrated. At night we beat to windward, having to direct us the beacons of two light-houses, which designate the entrance to the harbor. Next morning we stood into the roadstead, which is easy of access, but only presents a secure anchorage at certain seasons of the year, being entirely unprotected from the winds. At 10¹⁄₂ A. M. on the 23d we let go our anchor, amid some twenty vessels, most of which fly either the French or English flag--these two nations carrying on the principal trade to and from the port. These vessels were of the most ancient models, not a clipper to be seen amongst them; all betrayed too plainly that Yankee ingenuity had nothing to do with their construction, but that their models, rig, and lumbering appearance were all owing to some clumsy English shipwright, or French bungler in the same line.