# Works of Jules Verne/Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea/Chapter 18

CHAPTER XVIII VANIKORO
This terrible spectacle was the forerunner of the series of maritime catastrophes that the Nautilus was destined to meet with in its route. As long as it went through more frequented waters, we often saw the hulls of shipwrecked vessels that were rotting in the depths, and, deeper down, cannons, bullets, anchors, chains, and a thousand other iron materials eaten up by rust. On the 11th of December, we sighted the Pomotou Islands, the old "dangerous group" of Bougainville, that extend over a space of 500 leagues at E. S. E. to W. N. W., from the Island Ducie to that of Lazareff. This group covers an area of 370 square leagues, and it is formed of sixty groups of islands, among which the Gambier group is remarkable, over which France exercises sway. These are coral islands, slowly raised, but continuous, created by the daily work of polypi. Then this new island will be joined later on to the neighboring groups, and a fifth continent will stretch from New ​Zealand and New Caledonia, and from thence to the Marquesas.
One day, when I was suggesting this theory to Captain Nemo, he replied coldly:
"The earth does not want any more new continents, but new men."
Chance had conducted the Nautilus toward the island of Clermont-Tonnerre, one of the most curious of the group that was discovered in 1822 by Captain Bell of the Minerva. I could study now the madreporal system, to which are due the islands in this ocean.
Madrepores (which must not be mistaken for corals) have a tissue lined with a calcareous crust, and the modifications of its structure have induced M. Milne-Edwards, my worthy master, to class them into five sections. The animalculæ that the marine polypus secretes live by millions at the bottom of their cells. Their calcareous deposits become rocks, reefs, and large and small islands. Here they form a ring, surrounding a little inland lake, that communicates with the sea by means of gaps. There they make barriers of reefs like those on the coast of New Caledonia and the various Pomotou islands. In other places, like those at Reunion and at Maurice, they raise fringed reefs, high, straight walls, near which the depth of the ocean is considerable.
Some cable-lengths off the shores of the island of Clermont, I admired the gigantic work accomplished by these microscopical workers. These walls are specially the work of those madrepores known as milleporas, porites, madrepores, and astræas. These polypi are found particularly in the rough beds of the sea, near the surface; and consequently it is from the upper part that they begin their operations in which they bury themselves by degrees with the débris of the secretions that support them. Such is, at least, Darwin's theory, who thus explains the formation of the atolls, a superior theory (to my mind) to that given of the foundation of the madreporical works, summits of mountains or volcanoes, that are submerged some feet below the level of the sea.
I could observe closely these curious walls, for perpendicularly they were more than 300 yards deep, and our electric sheets lighted up this calcareous matter brilliantly. ​Replying to a question Conseil asked me as to the time these colossal barriers took to be raised, I astonished him much by telling him that learned men reckoned it about the eighth of an inch in a hundred years.
Toward evening Clermont-Tonnerre was lost in the distance, and the route of the Nautilus was sensibly changed. After having crossed the tropic of Capricorn in 135° longitude, it sailed W. N. W., making again for the tropical zone. Although the summer sun was very strong, we did not suffer from the heat, for at fifteen or twenty fathoms below the surface the temperature did not rise above from ten to twelve degrees.
On December 15, we left to the east the bewitching group of the Societies and the graceful Tahiti, queen of the Pacific. I saw in the morning some miles to the windward, the elevated summits of the island. These waters furnished our table with excellent fish, mackerel, bonitos, and albicores, and some varieties of a sea-serpent called munirophis.
On the 25th of December the Nautilus sailed into the midst of the New Hebrides, discovered by Quiros in 1606, and that Bougainville explored in 1768, and to which Cook gave its present name in 1773. This group is composed principally of nine large islands, that form a band of 120 leagues N. N. E. to S. S. W., between 15° and 20° south latitude, and 164° and 168° longitude. We passed tolerably near to the island of Auron, that at noon looked like a mass of green woods surmounted by a peak of great height.
That day being Christmas Day, Ned Land seemed to regret sorely the non-celebration of "Christmas," the family fête of which Protestants are so fond. I had not seen Captain Nemo for a week when, on the morning of the 27th, he came into the large drawing-room, always seeming as if he had seen you five minutes before. I was busily tracing the route of the Nautilus on the planisphere. 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 on which La Perouse had been lost! I rose suddenly.
"The Nautilus has brought us to Vanikoro?" I asked.
"Yes, professor," said the captain.
THE SECRETS OF THE SEA
I rose, went and leaned on my elbows before the panes, and watched. In a full electric light, an enormous black mass, quite immovable, was suspended in the midst of the waters. I watched it attentively, seeking to find out the nature of this gigantic cetacean. But a sudden thought crossed my mind. "A vessel!" I said, half aloud.
"Yes," replied the Canadian, "a disabled ship that has sunk perpendicularly." mackerel, bonitos, Ned Land was right; we were close to a vessel of which the tattered shrouds still hung from their chains. The keel seemed to be in good order, and it had been wrecked at most some few hours. Three stumps of masts, broken off about two feet above the bridge, showed that the vessel had had to sacrifice its masts. This skeleton of what it had once been was a sad spectacle as it lay lost under the waves; but sadder still was the sight of the bridge, where some corpses, bound with ropes, were still lying.—Page 93.
​"And I can visit the celebrated islands where the Boussole and the Astrolabe struck?"
"If you like, professor."
"When shall we be there?"
"We are there now."
Followed by Captain Nemo, I went up on to the platform, and greedily scanned the horizon.
To the N.E. two volcanic islands emerged, of unequal size, surrounded by a coral reef that measured forty miles in circumference.
We were close to Vanikoro, really the one to which Dumont d'Urville gave the name of Isle de la Récherché, and exactly facing the little harbor of Vanon, situated in 16° 4′ south latitude, and 164° 32′ east longitude. The earth seemed covered with verdure from the shore to the summits in the interior, that were crowned by Mount Kapogo, 476 feet high. The Nautilus, having passed the outer belt of rocks by a narrow strait, found itself among breakers where the sea was from thirty to forty fathoms deep. Under the verdant shade of some mangroves I perceived some savages, who appeared greatly surprised at our approach. In the long black body, moving between wind and water, did they not see some formidable cetacean that they regarded 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 inquired ironically.
"Easily."
I related to him all that the last works of Dumont d'Urville had made known—works from which the following is a brief account:
La Perouse, and his second, Captain de Langle, were sent by Louis XVI, in 1785, on a voyage of circumnavigation. They embarked in the corvettes the Boussole and the Astrolabe, neither of which were again heard of. In 1791 the French government, justly uneasy as to the fate of these two sloops, manned two large merchantmen, the Récherché and the Esperance, which left Brest the 28th of September, under the command of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux.
​Two months after, they learned from Bowen, commander of the Albemarle, that the débris of shipwrecked vessels had been seen on the coasts of New Georgia. But D'Entrecasteaux, ignoring this communication—rather uncertain besides—directed his course toward the Admiralty Isles, mentioned in a report of Captain Hunter's as being the place where La Perouse was wrecked.
They sought in vain. The Esperance and the Récherché passed before Vanikoro without stopping there, and in fact this voyage was most disastrous, as it cost D'Entrecasteaux his life, and those of two of his lieutenants, besides several of his crew.
Captain Dillon, a shrewd old Pacific sailor, was the first to find unmistakable traces of the wrecks. On the 15th of May, 1824, his vessel, the St. Patrick, passed close to Tikopia, one of the New Hebrides. There a Lascar came alongside in a canoe, sold him the handle of a sword in silver, that bore the print of characters engraved on the hilt. The Lascar pretended that six years before, during a stay at Vanikoro, he had seen two Europeans that belonged to some vessels that had run aground on the reefs some years ago.
Dillon guessed that he meant La Perouse, whose disappearance had troubled the whole world. He tried to get on to Vanikoro, where according to the Lascar he would find numerous débris of the wreck, but winds and tide prevented him.
Dillon returned to Calcutta. There he interested the Asiatic Society and the Indian Company in his discovery. A vessel, to which was given the name of the Récherché, was put at his disposal, and he set out, January 23, 1827, accompanied by a French agent.
The Récherché, after touching at several points in the Pacific, cast anchor before Vanikoro, July 7, 1827, in this same harbor of Vanon where the Nautilus was at this time.
There it collected numerous relics of the wreck—iron utensils, anchors, pulley-strops, swivel-guns, an eighteen-pound shot, fragments of astronomical instruments, a piece of crown-work, and a bronze clock, bearing this inscription: "Bazin m'a fait," the mark of the foundry of the arsenal at Brest about 1785. There could be no further doubt.
​Dillon, having made all inquiries, stayed in the unlucky place till October. Then he quitted Vanikoro, and directed his course toward New Zealand; put into Calcutta, April 7, 1828, and returned to France, where he was warmly welcomed by Charles X.
But at the same time, without knowing Dillon's movements, Dumont d'Urville had already set out to find the scene of the wreck. He had learned from a whaler that same medals and a cross of St. Louis had been found in the hands of some savages of Louisiade and New Caledonia. He had then sailed, and two months after Dillon had left Vanikoro, he put into Hobart Town. There he learned the results of Dillon's inquiries, and found that a certain James Hobbs, second lieutenant of the Union, of Calcutta, after landing on an island situated 8° 18′ south latitude, and 156° 30′ east longitude, had seen some iron bars and red stuffs used by the natives of these parts. Dumont d'Urville, much perplexed, and not knowing how to credit the reports of low-class journals, decided to follow Dillon's track.
On the 10th of February, 1828, the Astrolabe appeared off Tikopia, and took as guide and interpreter a deserter found on the island; made his way to Vanikoro, sighted it on the 12th inst, lay among the reefs until the 14th, and not until the 2Oth did he cast anchor within the barrier in the harbor of Vanon.
On the 23d, several officers went round the island, and brought back some unimportant trifles. The natives, adopting a system of denials and evasions, refused to take them to the unlucky place. This ambiguous conduct led them to believe that the natives had ill-treated the castaways, and indeed they seemed to fear that Dumont d'Urville had come to avenge La Perouse and his unfortunate crew.
However, on the 26th, appeased by some presents, and understanding that they had no reprisals to fear, they led M. Jacquireot to the scene of the wreck.
There, in three or four fathoms of water, between the reefs of Pacou and Vanou, lay anchors, cannons, pigs of lead and iron, imbedded in the limy concretions. The large boat and the whaler belonging to the Astrolabe were sent to this place, and, not without some difficulty, their ​crews hauled up an anchor weighing 1,800 pounds, a brass gun, some pigs of iron, and two copper swivel-guns.
Dumont d'Urville, questioning the natives, learned, too, that La Perouse, after losing both his vessels on the reefs of this island, had constructed a smaller boat, only to be lost a second time. Where?—no one knew.
But the French government, fearing that Dumont d'Urville was not acquainted with Dillon's movements, had sent the sloop Bayonnaise, commanded by Legoarant de Tromelin, to Vanikoro. The Bayonnaise cast her anchor before Vanikoro some months after the departure of the Astrolabe. She found no new evidence but stated that the savages had respected the monument to La Perouse. That is the substance of what I told to Captain Nemo.
"So," he said, "no one knows now where the third vessel perished that was constructed by the castaways on the island of Vanikoro?"
"No one knows."
Captain Nemo said nothing, but signed me to follow him into the large salon. The Nautilus sank several yards below the waves, and the panels were opened.
I hastened to the aperture, and under the crustations of coral, covered with fungi, syphonules, alcyons, madrepores, through myriads of charming fish—girelles, glyphisidri, pompherides, diacopes, and holocentres—I recognized certain débris that the drags had not been able to tear up: iron stirrups, anchors, cannons, bullets, capstan-fittings, the stem of a ship—all objects clearly proving the wreck of some vessel, and now carpeted with living flowers.
While I was looking on this desolate scene, Captain Nemo said, in a sad voice, "Commander La Perouse set out December 7, 1785, with his vessels La Bousolle and the Astrolabe. He first cast anchor at Botany Bay, visited the Friendly Isles, New Caledonia, then directed his course toward Santa Cruz, and put into Namouka, one of the Hapaï group. Then his vessel struck on the unknown reefs of Vanikoro. The Bousolle, which went first, ran aground on the southerly coast. The Astrolabe went to its help, and ran aground too. The first vessel was destroyed almost immediately. The second, stranded under the wind, resisted some days. The natives made the castaways welcome. They installed themselves in the island, ​and constructed a smaller boat with the débris 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 toward the Solomon Isles, and there perished, with everything, on the westerly coast of the chief island of the group, between Capes Deception and Satisfaction."
"How do you know that?"
"By this, that I found on the spot where was the last wreck."
Captain Nemo showed me a tin-plate box, stamped with the French 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, annotated in the margin in Louis XVI.'s handwriting.
"Ah! it is 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."
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