On the 23rd, 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,
embedded 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
lbs., 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.
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