Rodrigues entered recorded human history in 1528 when the first ships arrived. No-one lived on the island back then and if the crew of any passing ships had come ashore here prior to this date, they left no record of their passing. Rodrigues lay too far south and too far east of the busy trade routes and trade winds that connected East Africa with Arabia and Asia. Even when Portuguese, Dutch and French ships, blown way off course, sheltered on Rodrigues intermittently through the 16th Century, they stayed only long enough to replenish their food supplies. Most often, this meant giant tortoises and the solitaire, a fatally plump bird that sailors quickly drove to extinction, just as they had the dodo on Mauritius.