…Réunion; he calls them Dina Margabin, Dina…

…Réunion; he calls them Dina Margabin, Dina Arobi.

The three uninhabited islands, located five hundred miles (eight hundred and five kilometers) east of Madagascar, are encountered by chance during a Portuguese exploratory expedition of the coast of the Bay of Bengal led by Tristão da Cunha.

The expedition runs into a cyclone and is forced to change course.

Thus, the ship Cirne of the captain Diogo Fernandes Pereira comes into view of Réunion island on February 9, 1507.

They call the island "Santa Apolonia" ("Saint Apollonia") in honor of that day’s saint.

Mauritius, encountered during the same expedition, receives the name of "Cirne" and Rodrigues that of "Diogo Fernandes".

Five years later, the islands are visited by Dom Pedro de Mascarenhas, after whom the whole region will be named in 1528.

The Portuguese take no interest in these isolated islands, being that they are already established in Asia in Goa, on the coast of Malabar, on the island of Ceylon and on the Malaysian coast.

Their main African base is in Mozambique; the Portuguese navigators therefore prefer to use the Mozambique Channel to go to India.

The Comoros at the north end of the channel prove to be a more practical port of call.

Thus no permanent colony is established on the island by the Portuguese.