Another chief, Valiko by name, said that one of the boats had struck outside the reef opposite Tanema after a very windy night, and that nearly all its crew had perished before they could land. Many of the sailors of the second vessel had got to land, and built at Paion a little boat out of the pieces of the large ship wrecked. During their stay at Paion quarrels arose, and two sailors with five natives of Vanon and one from Tanema were killed. At the end of five months the Frenchmen left the island. Lastly, a third old man told how some thirty sailors belonging to the first vessel had joined the crew of the second, and that they had all left at the end of six or seven months. All these facts, which had so to speak to be extracted by force, varied in their details; the last, however, seemed most nearly to approach the truth. Amongst the objects picked up by the _Astrolabe_ were an anchor weighing about 1800 pounds, a cast-iron cannon, a bronze swivel, a copper blunderbuss, some pig lead, and several other considerably damaged articles of little interest. 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. It consists of a quadrangular prism, made of coral slabs six feet high, surmounted by a pyramid of Koudi wood of the same height, bearing on a little plate of lead the following inscription,-- A la Memoire DE LA PEROUSE, ET DE SES COMPAGNONS L'ASTROLABE 14 _Mars_, 1828. As soon as this task was accomplished, D'Urville prepared to set sail again, as it was time he did, for the damp resulting from the torrents of rain had engendered serious fevers, prostrating no less than twenty-five of the party. The commander would have to make haste if he wished to keep a crew fit to execute the arduous manoeuvres necessary to the exit of the vessel from a narrow pass strewn with rocks. The last day passed by the _Astrolabe_ at Vanikoro would have shown the truth to D'Urville had he needed any enlightening as to the true disposition of the natives. The following is his account of the last incidents of this dangerous halt.