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 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 Recherche 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 debris of shipwrecked vessels had been seen on the coasts of
New Georgia. But D'Entrecasteaux, ignoring this communication--rather
uncertain, besides--directed his course towards the Admiralty Islands,
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 Recherche 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 debris of the wreck,
but winds and tides prevented him.

Dillon returned to Calcutta. There he intereste