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Updated: June 8, 2025
De Crozet did not hesitate to throw away his own charts when he recognised the superiority of Cook's; and Dumont d'Urville calls him "the most illustrious navigator of both the past and future ages whose name will for ever remain at the head of the list of sailors of all nations."
Among the antique statues of which the Louvre is full, there is one of Polyhymnia, which is celebrated above the rest for an expression of melancholy pensiveness not usually found among the ancients. It is a singular circumstance that D'Urville should have observed among the Papuans the very expression of countenance distinguishing this antique statue.
Meanwhile, fearing that Dumont d'Urville wasn't abreast of Dillon's activities, the French government sent a sloop of war to Vanikoro, the Bayonnaise under Commander Legoarant de Tromelin, who had been stationed on the American west coast.
They even knew something of the art of fortification, as D'Urville ascertained by an inspection of the fortified village of Hifo, defended with stout palisades, and surrounded by a trench between fifteen and twenty feet wide, and half filled with water. On the 25th of May, D'Urville began the exploration of the Viti or Fiji Archipelago.
In the English colony itself there was some difference of opinion as to the credit which Captain Dillon's story was entitled to receive; but the report which that officer had made to the Governor-General of India, quite removed any doubt from the mind of D'Urville.
"As I was about to re-embark," says D'Urville, "a little barrel was brought to me which had been found hung on a tree on the beach, near a post on which was written Post Office. Having ascertained that this barrel contained papers, I took it on board and examined them.
I told her we were going to Italy as soon as we could get off after the holidays. While we were talking, a message came up to say that the young men of the cabinet were all coming up to say good-bye to me. I had seen the directors earlier in the day, so Madame de Zuylen took her leave, promising to come to my Christmas tree in the rue Dumont d'Urville.
Throughout it all, however, sight of the land had not, so to speak, been lost, but on the 29th the wind blew so strongly and persistently from the east, that D'Urville had to abandon the survey of Adélie Land. It was on this same day that he sighted the vessels of Lieutenant Wilkes.
During his three months' residence amongst them, Niederhauser had learnt something of the language of the Patagonians, and with his aid D'Urville drew up a comparative vocabulary of a great many words in Patagonian, French, and German.
"The Nautilus was built to rest on the ocean floor, and I don't need to undertake the arduous labors, the maneuvers d'Urville had to attempt in order to float off his sloops of war. The Zealous and the new Astrolabe wellnigh perished, but my Nautilus is in no danger.
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