ERECTING A MONUMENT. 523 



The islanders were now profuse in their explanations of the 

 • circumstances attending the calamity. As far as d'Urville 



CONSECRATION OF THE CENOTAPH. 



could interpret their language and their pantomime, the ships 

 struck upon the reef during a gale in the night. One speedily 

 sank, only thirty of her crew escaping ; the other remained for 

 a time entire, but afterwards went to pieces, her whole crew 

 having been saved. From her timbers they constructed a 

 schooner, in which labor they occupied seven moons or months, 

 and then sailed away and never returned. What befell them 

 after their second embarkation, what was the fate of their daring 

 little vessel, — if indeed any such was ever built, — no one has 

 survived to tell. It is safe to believe that both vessels were 

 lost upon the island of Vanikoro, now one of the archipelago 

 of the New Hebrides. It is supposed that Laperouse was the 

 first European navigator that visited it, Dillon the second, and 

 d'Urville the third. 



