Man upon the sea : or, a history of maritime adventure, exploration, and discovery, from the earliest ages to the present time ... . f, bore away to New Zealand and pro-ceeded o$ his voyage. MAN UPON THE SEA. 467 In 1827, Duniont dUrville was sent out by the French Govern-ment in the sloop-of-war Astrolabe to explore the great archi-pelagoes of the Pacific, with incidental authority to follow up anyclue he mio-ht discover to the fate of Laperouse. At HobartTown, in Van Diemens Land, he heard some account of theefforts made by Dillon, and determined to conclude what he hadbeo-un. He sailed at o
Man upon the sea : or, a history of maritime adventure, exploration, and discovery, from the earliest ages to the present time ... . f, bore away to New Zealand and pro-ceeded o$ his voyage. MAN UPON THE SEA. 467 In 1827, Duniont dUrville was sent out by the French Govern-ment in the sloop-of-war Astrolabe to explore the great archi-pelagoes of the Pacific, with incidental authority to follow up anyclue he mio-ht discover to the fate of Laperouse. At HobartTown, in Van Diemens Land, he heard some account of theefforts made by Dillon, and determined to conclude what he hadbeo-un. He sailed at once for Manicolo, and, after examiningthe eastern coast of the island without success, proceeded to thewestern. Here he found numerous articles of European manu-facture in possession of the savages, who steadfastly refused tosay whence they had obtained them or to point out the scene ofany catastrophe or shipwreck. At last, the offer of a piece ofred cloth induced a painted islander to conduct a boats crew tothe spot which is now regarded as that at which the lamentedcommander and his vessels met their untimely fate. Scattered. about in the bed of the sea, at the depth of- about twenty feet,lay anchors, cannon, and sheets of lead and copper sheathing,completely corroded and disfigured by rust. They succeeded inrecovering many of them from the water,—an anchor of four-teen hundred pounds, a small cannon coated with coral, andtwo brass swivels, in a good state of preservation. Thus pos-sessed of evidence which after the lapse of forty years must beconsidered as conclusive, dUrville erected near the anchoragea cenotaph to the memory of the hapless navigator. It wasplaced in a smdl grove, and consecrated by a salute of twenty-one guns and three volleys of musketry. 468 MAN UPON THE SEA. The islanders were now profuse in their explanations of thecircumstances attending the calamity. As far as dUrville
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