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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Chapter 18. VANIKORO
This terrible sight was the beginning of a series of sea disasters that the Nautilus was going to meet on its path.
We often saw the hulls of wrecked ships rotting in the depths.
Deeper down were cannons, bullets, anchors, chains, and a thousand other iron objects eaten by rust.
However, on the 11th of December we saw the Pomotou Islands, the old "dangerous group"
Of Bougainville, that stretch over 500 leagues from E.S.E. to W.N.W. from Ducie Island to Lazareff Island.
This group covers 370 square leagues, and it's made of sixty groups of islands, among which the Gambier group is special, and France rules over it.
These are coral islands, slowly raised but continuous, created by the daily work of tiny sea animals.
The new island will join nearby groups, and a fifth continent will stretch from New Zealand and New Caledonia to the Marquesas.
One day, when I was suggesting this idea to Captain Nemo, he replied coldly,
"The earth doesn't want new continents, but new men."
Chance had brought the Nautilus to Clermont-Tonnere Island, one of the group's most interesting, discovered in 1822 by Captain Bell of the Minerva.
I could now study the coral system, to which the islands in this ocean are due.
Madrepores, which mustn't be confused with corals, have a tissue lined with a hard crust, and the changes in its structure have made M.
Milne Edwards, my worthy teacher, divide them into five groups.
The tiny animals that the sea polyps produce live by millions at the bottom of their cells.
Their hard deposits become rocks, reefs, and large and small islands.
Here they form a ring, surrounding a small inland lake, that connects with the sea through gaps.
There they make barriers of reefs like those on the coasts of New Caledonia and the various Pomoton islands.
In other places, like those at Reunion and at Mauritius, they raise fringed reefs, high, straight walls, near which the depth of the ocean is great.
Some cable-lengths off the shores of Clermont Island I admired the huge work done by these tiny workers.
These walls are especially the work of those madrepores known as milleporas, porites, madrepores, and astraeas.
These polyps are found in the rough beds of the sea, near the surface.
They start their work from the upper part.
There, they slowly bury themselves with the remains of their secretions.
That's at least Darwin's theory, he explains the formation of the atolls this way.
To my mind, it's a better theory than the one about coral works.
That theory says they're built on mountain or volcano tops sunk below the sea.
I could watch these curious walls closely, they were over 300 yards deep, and our electric lights lit the hard material.
Conseil asked me how long it took for these huge barriers to be raised.
I surprised him by saying scientists thought it was about one-eighth of an inch in a hundred years.
Towards evening Clermont-Tonnerre was lost in the distance, and the route of the Nautilus changed noticeably.
After crossing the tropic of Capricorn at 135 longitude, it sailed W.N.W. heading again for the tropical zone.
Though the summer sun was strong, we felt no heat, at fifteen to twenty fathoms below surface it was ten to twelve degrees.
On the 15th of December, we left to the east the charming group of the Societies and the graceful Tahiti, queen of the Pacific.
In the morning, I saw, some miles to the windward, the high tops of the island.
These waters gave our table excellent fish, mackerel, bonitos, and some kinds of sea-serpent.
On the 25th of December, the Nautilus sailed into the middle of the New Hebrides.
Quiros discovered these islands in 1606, Bougainville explored them in 1768.
Cook gave them their present name in 1773.
This group has nine large islands forming a 120league band N.N.W. to S.S.E. between 15 and 2 S. lat. and 164, 168 long.
We passed quite close to Aurou Island, that at noon looked like a mass of green woods, with a very high peak on top.
That day being Christmas Day, Ned Land seemed to regret a lot the non-celebration of "Christmas," the family holiday that Protestants love so much.
I hadn't seen Captain Nemo for a week.
On the morning of the 27th he came into the large drawing-room, always looking as if he'd seen you five minutes before.
I was busy tracing the route of the Nautilus on the map.
The Captain came up to me, put his finger on one spot on the chart, and said this single word.
"Vanikoro."
The effect was magical! It was the name of the islands where La Perouse had been lost! I rose suddenly.
"The Nautilus has brought us to Vanikoro?" I asked.
"Yes, Professor," said the Captain.
"And I can visit the famous islands where the Boussole and the Astrolabe struck?"
"If you like, Professor."
"When will we be there?"
"We're there now."
Followed by Captain Nemo, I went up onto the platform, and looked eagerly at the horizon.
To the N.E. two volcanic islands appeared of different sizes, surrounded by a coral reef that measured forty miles around.
We were close to Vanikoro, really the one that Dumont d'Urville named Isle de la Recherche.
We were exactly facing the little harbor of Vanou, situated at 16 4' S. lat. and 164 32' E. long.
The land seemed covered with green from the shore to the tops inside, that were crowned by Mount Kapogo, 476 feet high.
The Nautilus, having passed the outer belt of rocks through a narrow strait, found itself among breakers where the sea was thirty to forty fathoms deep.
Under the green shade of some mangroves I saw some savages, who seemed very surprised at our approach.
In the long black body, moving between wind and water, didn't they see some dangerous sea animal that they looked at with suspicion?
Just then Captain Nemo asked me what I knew about the wreck of La Perouse.
"Only what everyone knows, Captain," I replied.
"And could you tell me what everyone knows about it?" he asked, with a sarcastic tone.
"Easily."
I told him all that the last works of Dumont d'Urville had made known, works from which the following is a short account.
La Perouse, and his second, Captain de Langle, were sent by Louis XVI in 1785 on a voyage around the world.
They set out in the corvettes Boussole and the Astrolabe, and neither was heard from again.
In 1791, the French Government was rightly worried about the fate of these two ships.
They manned two large merchant ships, the Recherche and the Esperance.
These ships left Brest on September 28th under the command of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux.
Two months later, they learned from Bowen, commander of the Albemarle, that the remains of wrecked ships had been seen on the coasts of New Georgia.
But D'Entrecasteaux ignored this information, which was also quite uncertain.
He directed his course towards the Admiralty Islands, mentioned in a report by Captain Hunter as the place where La Perouse was wrecked.
They searched in vain, the Esperance and the Recherche passed before Vanikoro without stopping there.
This voyage was very disastrous, it cost D'Entrecasteaux his life and those of two of his lieutenants, Several of his crew also died.
Captain Dillon, a clever old Pacific sailor, was the first to find clear traces of the wrecks.
On the 15th of May, 1824, his ship, the St. Patrick, passed close to Tikopia, one of the New Hebrides.
A Lascar came alongside in a canoe and sold him a silver sword-handle stamped with letters on the hilt.
The Lascar claimed that six years before, during a stay at Vanikoro, he'd seen two Europeans.
He said they belonged to ships that had run aground on the reefs some years earlier.
Dillon guessed that he meant La Perouse, whose disappearance had troubled the whole world.
He tried to get to Vanikoro, where, according to the Lascar, he'd find many remains of the wreck, but winds and tides stopped him.
Dillon returned to Calcutta, there he interested the Asiatic Society and the Indian Company in his discovery.
A ship, which was given the name of the Recherche, was put at his disposal.
And he set out on the 23rd of January, 1827, accompanied by a French agent.
The Recherche dropped anchor before Vanikoro on the 7th of July, 1827, after stopping at several points in the Pacific.
It anchored in the harbor of Vanou, the same harbor where the Nautilus was at this time.
There it collected many relics of the wreck.
These included iron tools, anchors, pulley-straps, and swivel-guns.
There was also an 18-pound shot and pieces of astronomical instruments.
A piece of crown work and a bronze clock were found.
The clock bore the inscription "Bazin m'a fait," the mark of the Brest arsenal foundry from around 1785.
There could be no more doubt about La Perouse's fate after these clear discoveries.
Dillon, having made all inquiries, stayed in the unlucky place until October.
Then he left Vanikoro and directed his course towards New Zealand, he arrived in Calcutta on the 7th of April, 1828.
He returned to France, where he was warmly welcomed by Charles X.
But at the same time, without knowing about Dillon's movements, Dumont d'Urville had already set out to find the scene of the wreck.
And they'd learned from a whaler that medals and a St. Louis cross had been found with savages of Louisiade and New Caledonia.
Dumont d'Urville, commander of the Astrolabe, had then sailed, and two months after Dillon had left Vanikoro he arrived in Hobart Town.
There he learned the results of Dillon's inquiries.
He found that a certain James Hobbs, a second lieutenant of the Union of Calcutta, had seen some iron bars and red cloth.
These items were used by the natives of an island at 818' S. lat. and 15630' E. long.
Dumont d'Urville, very confused, and not knowing whether to believe the reports of low-class journals, decided to follow Dillon's track.
On the 10th of February, 1828, the Astrolabe appeared off Tikopia.
There, it took a deserter found on the island as guide and interpreter.
The ship then made its way to Vanikoro, sighting it on the 12th.
It stayed among the reefs until the 14th.
Not until the 20th did it drop anchor inside the barrier in the harbor of Vanou.
On the 23rd, several officers went around the island and brought back some unimportant small items.
The natives, using a system of denials and evasions, refused to take them to the unlucky place.
This unclear behavior led them to believe that the natives had mistreated the shipwrecked men.
Indeed, the natives seemed to fear that Dumont d'Urville had come to avenge La Perouse and his unfortunate crew.
However, on the 26th, calmed by some gifts, and understanding that they had no revenge to fear, they led M.
Jacquireot to the scene of the wreck.
In three or four fathoms between reefs of Pacou and Vanou lay anchors, cannons, pigs of lead and iron buried in lime concretions.
The large boat and the whaler from the Astrolabe were sent to this place.
Their crews pulled up an anchor weighing 1,800 pounds.
They also recovered a brass gun, some pigs of iron, and two copper swivel-guns.
Dumont d'Urville, questioning the natives, learned that La Perouse had lost both his ships on the island's reefs.
He then built a smaller boat, but that craft was lost a second time.
Where they had gone after that, however, no one on the island or beyond knew.
The French Government, fearing Dumont d'Urville wasn't aware of Dillon's movements, sent the sloop Bayonnaise to Vanikoro.
The Bayonnaise, commanded by Legoarant de Tromelin, had been stationed on the west coast of America.
The Bayonnaise dropped anchor before Vanikoro some months after the departure of the Astrolabe.
It found no new document but stated that the savages had respected the monument to La Perouse.
That's the substance of what I told Captain Nemo.
"So," he said, "no one knows now where the third ship perished that was built by the shipwrecked men on the island of Vanikoro?"
"No one knows."
Captain Nemo said nothing, but signaled to me to follow him into the large saloon.
The Nautilus sank several yards below the waves, and the panels were opened.
I hurried to the opening, under the coral crust, with fungi, syphonules, alcyons, madrepores, among thousands of fish, girelles, pompherides, diacopes, and holocentres.
I recognized certain remains that the drags hadn't been able to tear up.
These included iron stirrups, anchors, cannons, bullets, and capstan fittings.
The stem of a ship was also there.
All objects clearly proved the wreck of some vessel.
They were now covered with living flowers.
While I was looking at this sad scene, Captain Nemo said, in a sad voice,
"Commander La Perouse set out on the 7th of December, 1785, with his ships La Boussole and the Astrolabe."
"He first dropped anchor at Botany Bay, visited the Friendly Isles, New Caledonia,"
"Then directed his course towards Santa Cruz, and arrived at Namouka, one of the Hapai group."
"Then his ships struck on the unknown reefs of Vanikoro."
"The Boussole, which went first, ran aground on the southerly coast."
"The Astrolabe went to its help, and ran aground too."
"The first ship was destroyed almost immediately."
"The second, stuck under the wind, resisted some days."
"The natives made the shipwrecked men welcome."
"They settled on the island, and built a smaller boat from the remains of the two large ones."
"Some sailors stayed willingly at Vanikoro, the others, weak and ill, set out with La Perouse."
"They directed their course towards the Solomon Islands,"
"And there perished, with everything, on the westerly coast of the main island of the group, between Capes Deception and Satisfaction."
"How do you know that?"
"By this, that I found on the spot where the last wreck was."
Captain Nemo showed me a tin-plate box, stamped with the French coat of arms, and corroded by the salt water.
He opened it, and I saw a bundle of papers, yellow but still readable.
They were the instructions of the naval minister to Commander La Perouse, with notes in the margin in Louis XVI's handwriting.
"Ah! it's a fine death for a sailor!" said Captain Nemo, at last.
"A coral tomb makes a quiet grave, and I trust that I and my comrades will find no other."