d'urville

Updated: June 8, 2025

Mauritius was reached in due course, and there D'Urville met Commander Le Goarant, who had made a trip to Vanikoro in the corvette La Bayonnaise, and who told D'Urville that he had not attempted to enter the reef, but had only sent in some boats to reconnoitre.

Jules Verne - Celebrated Travels and Travellers: Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century

"What everybody knows, captain," I answered him. "And could you kindly tell me what everybody knows?" he asked me in a gently ironic tone. "Very easily." I related to him what the final deeds of Captain Dumont d'Urville had brought to light, deeds described here in this heavily condensed summary of the whole matter.

Jules Verne - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

After the chief men of a warlike and fierce appearance, with faces tattooed all over, had been a few minutes on board, D'Urville was preparing to ask them some questions, with the aid of a vocabulary published by the missionaries, when all at once they turned away from him, leaped into their canoes and pushed out into the open sea.

Jules Verne - Celebrated Travels and Travellers: Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century

On this occasion also we had a full view of the whole of Mount Astrolabe, which although 3,824 feet in greatest height, and appearing to D'Urville as he ran past to be the highest land on this portion of the coast, is rendered quite insignificant by the lofty though distant range behind.

John MacGillivray - Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During the Years 1846-1850. : Including Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea, the Louisiade Archipelago, Etc. to Which Is Added the Account of Mr. E.B. Kennedy's Expedition for the Exploration of the Cape York Peninsula. By John Macgillivray, F.R.G.S. Naturalist to the Expedition. — Volume 2

These relics, with those collected by Dillon, are now in the Naval Museum at the Louvre. D'Urville did not leave Vanikoro without erecting a monument to the memory of his unfortunate fellow-countrymen. This humble memorial was placed in a mangrove grove off the reef itself.

Jules Verne - Celebrated Travels and Travellers: Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century

D'Urville soon resumed his southerly route, and on the 27th February sighted a considerable belt of land in the south-east on which he was prevented from landing by the fog and the continuous fall of very fine snow. He was now in the latitude of Hope Island i.e. in S. lat. 62 degrees 57 minutes.

Jules Verne - Celebrated Travels and Travellers: Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century

And they had learned from a whaler that some medals and a cross of St. Louis had been found in the hands of some savages of Louisiade and New Caledonia. Dumont d'Urville, commander of the Astrolabe, had then sailed, and two months after Dillon had left Vanikoro he put into Hobart Town.

Jules Verne - Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

Yet another motive led D'Urville to anchor off Port Famine, rather than off Staten Island.

Jules Verne - Celebrated Travels and Travellers: Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century

We were close to Vanikoro, really the one to which Dumont d'Urville gave the name of Isle de la Recherche, and exactly facing the little harbour of Vanou, situated in 16° 4' S. lat., and 164° 32' E. long. The earth seemed covered with verdure from the shore to the summits in the interior, that were crowned by Mount Kapogo, 476 feet high.

Jules Verne - Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

This continuance of bad weather, together with the increasing length of the nights, warned D'Urville of the necessity of giving up all idea of going further.

Jules Verne - Celebrated Travels and Travellers: Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century