Before leaving the scene of this melancholy story, we will glean a few details from D'Urville's account of it. The Vanikoro, Mallicolo, or, as Dillon calls it, the La Perouse group, consists of two islands, Research and Tevai. The former is no less than thirty miles in circumference, whilst the latter is only nine miles round. Both are lofty, clothed with impenetrable forests almost to the beach, and surrounded by a barrier of reefs thirty-six miles in circumference, with here and there a narrow strait between them. The inhabitants, who are lazy, slovenly, stupid, fierce, cowardly, and avaricious, do not exceed twelve or fifteen hundred in number. It was unfortunate for La Perouse to be shipwrecked amongst such people, when he would have received a reception so different on any other island of Polynesia. The women are naturally ugly, and the hard work they have to do, with their general mode of life, render their appearance yet more displeasing. The men are rather less ill-favoured, though they are stunted and lean, and covered with ulcers and leprosy scars. Arrows and bows are their only weapons, and, according to themselves, the former, with their very fine bone tips, soldered on with extremely tenacious gum, inflict mortal wounds. They therefore value them greatly, and the visitors had great trouble to obtain any. [Illustration: Reefs off Vanikoro.] On the 17th March the _Astrolabe_ at length issued from amongst the terrible reefs encircling Vanikoro. D'Urville had intended to survey Tamnako, Kennedy, Nitendi, and the Solomon Islands, where he hoped to meet with traces of the survivors from the shipwreck of the _Boussole_ and the _Astrolabe_. But the melancholy condition of the crew, pulled down as they were by fever, and the illness of most of the officers, with the absence of any safe anchorage in this part of Oceania, decided him to make for Guam, where he thought a little rest might possibly be obtained. This was a very grave dereliction from the instructions which ordered him to survey Torres Straits, but the fact of forty sailors being _hors de combat_ and on the sick-list, will suffice to prove how foolish it would have been to make so perilous an attempt. Not until the 26th April was Hogoley Archipelago sighted, where D'Urville bridged over the gaps left by Duperrey in his exploration, and only on the 2nd May did the coasts of Guam come in sight. Anchor was cast at Umata, where a supply of fresh water was easily found, and the climate much milder than at Agagna. On the 29th May, however, when the expedition set sail again, the men were not by any means all restored to health, which D'Urville attributed to the excesses in the way of eating indulged in by the sick, and the impossibility of getting them to keep to a suitable diet.