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To resume, the stay at Port Famine was most successful; wood and water were easily obtained, repairs, &c., were made, horary, physical, meteorological, tidal, and hydrographical observations were taken, and, lastly, numerous objects of natural history were collected, the more interesting as the museums of France hitherto contained nothing whatever from these unknown regions beyond "a few plants collected by Commerson and preserved in the Herbarium of M. de Jussieu."
We now know, from the united testimony of Rogers, Dampier and Commerson, that the artifice resorted to in the Jardinillos to catch turtles is employed by the inhabitants of the eastern coast of Africa, near Cape Natal, at Mozambique and at Madagascar.
That day they gathered up some unusual specimens from these fish-filled waterways: anglerfish whose comical movements qualify them for the epithet "clowns," black Commerson anglers equipped with their antennas, undulating triggerfish encircled by little red bands, bloated puffers whose venom is extremely insidious, some olive-hued lampreys, snipefish covered with silver scales, cutlass fish whose electrocuting power equals that of the electric eel and the electric ray, scaly featherbacks with brown crosswise bands, greenish codfish, several varieties of goby, etc.; finally, some fish of larger proportions: a one-meter jack with a prominent head, several fine bonito from the genus Scomber decked out in the colors blue and silver, and three magnificent tuna whose high speeds couldn't save them from our trawl.
I cannot describe the impression made upon my mind by the sight of the vessel which had carried Commerson to the islands of the South Sea. In some conditions of the mind, a painful emotion blends itself with all our feelings. We still persisted in the intention of visiting the African coast, and were nearly becoming the victims of our perseverance.
But ah! had I but been less clumsy in that war of wits with a woman, what might I have learned! Had she not been free to mock me, what might I not have learned! She was free to mock me, why? Because of Elisabeth. Was it then true that faith and loyalty could purchase alike faithlessness and failure? Women distrust men too much in general, and not enough in particular. Philibert Commerson.
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