Noumea - The mystery of a 200-year-old French shipwreck off an island in the south Pacific could be about to be unravelled after relevations by a New Caledonian research association were revealed.
For 20 years, the Solomons Association has been investigating what happened to Jean-Francois de Galaup de La Perouse and his two frigates - L'Astrolabe (the Astrolabe) and La Boussole (the Compass) - and their crew of 220 after hitting a reef off Vanikoro, an island in the southern Solomons, more than 200 years ago.
At the request of King Louis XVI, the Count of Perouse and his crew Namong them eminent scientists - left northern France on August 1, 1785 to sail around the world and map the lands which had eluded Captain James Cook.
After two and a half years Perouse sent a last message from Botany Bay in New Holland (now Australia) and headed east on March 10, 1788, in the direction of New Caledonia.
"Does one have news of Monsieur Perouse?" Louis XVI asked, giving birth to the "Perouse mystery".
It was not until 1827 that the wreck of the Boussole was discovered by Peter Dillon, an Irish navigator.
A few months later Jules Dumont came across the Astrolabe.
Between 1981 and 1990 members of the Solomons Association - set up by New Caledonian businessman Alain Conan - organised three expeditions to the wrecks, retrieving thousands of objects: crockery, glass jewellery, weapons, money.
Restored in a laboratory set up by the association, the collection is now displayed in the island's maritime museum.
But what became of Perouse and his crew? Conan's answer to this 200-year-old mystery lies in the discovery last year of a "French camp" in the village of Peou on Vanikoko.
"We found gunflints, crushed musket bullets, buttons and a measuring instrument," Conan said.
A second expedition, which began work in November, has continuted excavation work in collaboration with locals, whose oral tradition held clues about Perouse's shipwreck.
"This time we found shoe buckles, coins, dishes and bottles in a wider search. What this suggests is that there were several survivors. We would like to continue to the edge of the camp where we hope to find their graves," Conan said.
Particularly interested in finding the grave of Perouse, then aged 47, Conan believes that if Perouse survived the wreck he succumbed to his poor state of health, which he had described in letters to his family.
The association also discovered that survivors built a boat on which to leave Vanikoro, after finding nails at the camp and from stories among the indigenous population.
"The crushed bullets suggest imminent combat. Perhaps there was internal conflict as not everyone could get on the boat," Conan said, convinced that the sailors wanted to escape the island due its intolerable climate and disease.
Recent investigations have given the Solomons Association information on two wrecks in the Solomons archipelago, one of which could be the escape boat.
"Next year, we will reach these sites. And maybe then we finally can close the lid on the Perouse mystery," Conan said. - Sapa-AFP