Esper

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So, let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests. I’m João, and I have been a Software Engineer for more than 10 years now. I am technically a Software and Telecom engineer, but most part I have only been doing software engineering professionally. There are many things I love to do, and that, of course, includes making Tech videos and writing blog posts and articles, and maintaining my website. Outside work and outside Tech, I am someone very curious about biology, which is why I like to try to maintain a garden where I grow things like blueberry bushes, honeysuckles, and gooseberry bushes, and I also love photography. I mostly enjoy photographing nature, cities, and things with lights. Further, I also like to enjoy my time doing stuff related to art, for example, video, photo editing, and style editing. Outside of all of this, I also enjoy music, series, films, traveling, cooking, and, from time to time, the occasional electronics project. Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about? My latest Hackernoon Top story was the one I did about Kuma, which is about a way to create Meshes using Kuma-Meshes, where we can have a much more granular control over the data flow within our own network, which, amongst other things, can protect an organization against internal bad actors. Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about? A the moment I exclusively write about Tech, although I can form time to time relate those posts with other kind of topics like opinionated arguments or even politics when they have the potential to influence tech. It can also be that I can write about how some particular tech stacks may influence our approach to tech or even society and environment. But the main focus is always tech. Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?) I do not have a specific writing routine, although I am writing a lot more these days. Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing? My biggest challenge in writing is creating a functional example as fast as possible. Creating a story, implementing needed elements, making them run, creating tests for it, creating databases or any other persistence mechanisms for it, and trying to guarantee as much as possible that people can use the examples without walking against errors or faults is usually a very energy-intensive work. Therefore, it can take longer than desired. What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career? I want to be as successful as possible with my own effort and work, and I want to share my experiences and knowledge with other colleagues in the world of software engineering. I don’t know if it eventually can become a full-time job, but if it does, it will probably be the next thing that I would love to achieve. Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice? Listening to Madonna’s Ray of Light album. Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it? Yes! I love to take photos of wildlife. I especially love making macro photos of leaves, insects, and flowers, as well as minerals, rocks, glass, metals, and anything that looks outstanding in a macro photo. What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next? I usually write more about topics related to the Kotlin programming language; however, having said that I am finding it more and more interesting to write about security and operations from the DevSecOps area as I did in my article about Kuma. I think we can expect to read more about the SecOps area in my next articles, but I will still write about Dev. What’s your opinion on HackerNoon as a platform for writers? I think HackerNoon is a unique platform for writers to share knowledge about Technology because it is very recognizable, and a lot is automatically done for us like, for example, in this last article when it comes to translating my Kuma article in multiple languages. That was a very nice surprise to see. All in all, I think HackerNoon really appeals to Software programmers, Engineers, Developers, and even Businesses and so I’m very happy to keep writing for HackerNoon. Thanks for taking time to join our “Meet the writer” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words? Yes, thank you for giving me this great interview. I really appreciate the boost given to my article. I hope to be able to keep writing for HackerNoon for as long as possible. It is a pleasure to do so. Thanks again for the incredible support and for being there. So, let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests. I’m João, and I have been a Software Engineer for more than 10 years now. I am technically a Software and Telecom engineer, but most part I have only been doing software engineering professionally. There are many things I love to do, and that, of course, includes making Tech videos and writing blog posts and articles, and maintaining my website. Outside work and outside Tech, I am someone very curious about biology, which is why I like to try to maintain a garden where I grow things like blueberry bushes, honeysuckles, and gooseberry bushes, and I also love photography. I mostly enjoy photographing nature, cities, and things with lights. Further, I also like to enjoy my time doing stuff related to art, for example, video, photo editing, and style editing. Outside of all of this, I also enjoy music, series, films, traveling, cooking, and, from time to time, the occasional electronics project. Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about? My latest Hackernoon Top story was the one I did about Kuma, which is about a way to create Meshes using Kuma-Meshes, where we can have a much more granular control over the data flow within our own network, which, amongst other things, can protect an organization against internal bad actors. Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about? A the moment I exclusively write about Tech, although I can form time to time relate those posts with other kind of topics like opinionated arguments or even politics when they have the potential to influence tech. It can also be that I can write about how some particular tech stacks may influence our approach to tech or even society and environment. But the main focus is always tech. Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?) I do not have a specific writing routine, although I am writing a lot more these days. Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing? My biggest challenge in writing is creating a functional example as fast as possible. Creating a story, implementing needed elements, making them run, creating tests for it, creating databases or any other persistence mechanisms for it, and trying to guarantee as much as possible that people can use the examples without walking against errors or faults is usually a very energy-intensive work. Therefore, it can take longer than desired. What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career? I want to be as successful as possible with my own effort and work, and I want to share my experiences and knowledge with other colleagues in the world of software engineering. I don’t know if it eventually can become a full-time job, but if it does, it will probably be the next thing that I would love to achieve. Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice? Listening to Madonna’s Ray of Light album. Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it? Yes! I love to take photos of wildlife. I especially love making macro photos of leaves, insects, and flowers, as well as minerals, rocks, glass, metals, and anything that looks outstanding in a macro photo. What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next? I usually write more about topics related to the Kotlin programming language; however, having said that I am finding it more and more interesting to write about security and operations from the DevSecOps area as I did in my article about Kuma. I think we can expect to read more about the SecOps area in my next articles, but I will still write about Dev. What’s your opinion on HackerNoon as a platform for writers? I think HackerNoon is a unique platform for writers to share knowledge about Technology because it is very recognizable, and a lot is automatically done for us like, for example, in this last article when it comes to translating my Kuma article in multiple languages. That was a very nice surprise to see. All in all, I think HackerNoon really appeals to Software programmers, Engineers, Developers, and even Businesses and so I’m very happy to keep writing for HackerNoon. Thanks for taking time to join our “ Meet the writer ” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words? Meet the writer Yes, thank you for giving me this great interview. I really appreciate the boost given to my article. I hope to be able to keep writing for HackerNoon for as long as possible. It is a pleasure to do so. Thanks again for the incredible support and for being there.

Meet the Writer: HackerNoon's Contributor João Esperancinha, Software Engineer

We all know that a lot in this world is done by gaming the system. Web scrapping might be a way of doing things in a world where a lot about the world is there. Although many of us bright entrepreneurs know that gaming is wrong, some of our instincts keep giving us reasons to think of new ways to do it. In terms of our legitimate reasons to look to the online world, when I vouch for us to accept the reality as usable and modifiable, my reasons seem to gravitate towards the original idea of the Web - that ideal read/write place for everyone - and also perhaps around the fact that all the words online aren’t really words, are just building blocks of a world, like a city, bricks and places, and art that is there like statues and paintings that we can observe and take pictures. But then, on the other hand, I also see the other world which confuses me - when that art is not given like the Colosseum, and it is given within a frame, like some of the frames inside the Louvre. Then I can’t exactly touch it anymore; I can’t exactly take or be in it. So, between these two worlds, I get confused. I love both of them, somehow. I love the art in the streets and the bricks and places which are for all of us; but I also respect the value of these other things that people create and where they create because they know that there is some value for them too. That seems to be a way that sets them to move forward. So it’s a puzzle, for me, but also a puzzle for these AI systems that are so interested in learning from the world, and especially interested in learning faster. What to do? When naively thinking about a solution, in a hurry, I thought about using AI to come up with the whole world. As in, “My dear ChatGPT, please write the world for me but write the world’s creations in ways that data can be used by some other system that will come upon you, to reinvent you. So, don’t be afraid, fear not, and give me one so that another world becomes possible.” Under my naive influence, I usually add things like “Thank you,” and “Please give me this world written in English, Japanese, Esperanto, and Klingon.” So anyway, that is naive or limited, I know. But then I was thinking from that perspective, of a world, and that took me to think about games, and specially about the sort of games where a whole world happens there. So I thought, what if another world exists? Or what if the whole universe could be created like a game? And what if that infrastructure had in it some mechanism for us, the beings from outside so that we could see everything, and use everything to learn? Could that be done? Perhaps we can’t yet fully get the data from our own world’s data, for us to reinvent ourselves, granted. But perhaps, too we could start prototyping a world, like a world within a universe. What if something could start from almost nothing - something that grows, like from an initial tiny spark? And from that spark, what if some of the interactions could unfold elementary building blocks? And that through these interactions - and frictions - things could go on and on and on. And, perhaps, if we could find some basic mechanism where beings could exist in there. And where they could eventually become smarter, collectively speaking, so that they could make too their own worlds. All of that for us to be able to simply watch and smile, and get the data. I don’t mean for us to play gods for them, although I would have hopes about the odds of them thinking of Gods. But we would be able to watch, to see everything, to see them making love or even fighting each other, to see them learning from their bad collaborative interactions, to see them evolving, eventually. And if somehow they stumble in creating their own technologies for reinventing their world, that is fine too. Then our highest possible lesson - to be taken from them - would be about watching them solve their own problems first-hand. We all know that a lot in this world is done by gaming the system. Web scrapping might be a way of doing things in a world where a lot about the world is there. Although many of us bright entrepreneurs know that gaming is wrong, some of our instincts keep giving us reasons to think of new ways to do it. In terms of our legitimate reasons to look to the online world, when I vouch for us to accept the reality as usable and modifiable, my reasons seem to gravitate towards the original idea of the Web - that ideal read/write place for everyone - and also perhaps around the fact that all the words online aren’t really words, are just building blocks of a world, like a city, bricks and places, and art that is there like statues and paintings that we can observe and take pictures. But then, on the other hand, I also see the other world which confuses me - when that art is not given like the Colosseum , and it is given within a frame, like some of the frames inside the Louvre . Then I can’t exactly touch it anymore; I can’t exactly take or be in it. So, between these two worlds, I get confused. I love both of them, somehow. Colosseum Louvre I love the art in the streets and the bricks and places which are for all of us; but I also respect the value of these other things that people create and where they create because they know that there is some value for them too. That seems to be a way that sets them to move forward. So it’s a puzzle, for me, but also a puzzle for these AI systems that are so interested in learning from the world, and especially interested in learning faster. What to do? When naively thinking about a solution, in a hurry, I thought about using AI to come up with the whole world. As in, “My dear ChatGPT, please write the world for me but write the world’s creations in ways that data can be used by some other system that will come upon you, to reinvent you. So, don’t be afraid, fear not, and give me one so that another world becomes possible.” Under my naive influence, I usually add things like “Thank you,” and “Please give me this world written in English, Japanese, Esperanto, and Klingon.” So anyway, that is naive or limited, I know. But then I was thinking from that perspective, of a world, and that took me to think about games, and specially about the sort of games where a whole world happens there. So I thought, what if another world exists? Or what if the whole universe could be created like a game? And what if that infrastructure had in it some mechanism for us, the beings from outside so that we could see everything, and use everything to learn? Could that be done? Perhaps we can’t yet fully get the data from our own world’s data, for us to reinvent ourselves, granted. But perhaps, too we could start prototyping a world, like a world within a universe. What if something could start from almost nothing - something that grows, like from an initial tiny spark? And from that spark, what if some of the interactions could unfold elementary building blocks? And that through these interactions - and frictions - things could go on and on and on. And, perhaps, if we could find some basic mechanism where beings could exist in there. And where they could eventually become smarter, collectively speaking, so that they could make too their own worlds. All of that for us to be able to simply watch and smile, and get the data. I don’t mean for us to play gods for them, although I would have hopes about the odds of them thinking of Gods. But we would be able to watch, to see everything, to see them making love or even fighting each other, to see them learning from their bad collaborative interactions, to see them evolving, eventually. And if somehow they stumble in creating their own technologies for reinventing their world, that is fine too. Then our highest possible lesson - to be taken from them - would be about watching them solve their own problems first-hand.

Gaming the System in the Search for AI Data 

September 23 is the , as proclaimed by the United Nations in 2017. This date is a good occasion to dream (or maybe set a goal) that a day will come when all media and tech products will be equally accessible by all people regardless of their disabilities. I dream that someday all deaf people will be able to watch live sports streams. Translating into sign languages in real time is a tricky task, even for human interpreters. But as there are too few skilled interpreters and so many different sign languages, sports streams cannot become truly universally accessible at the moment. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve this problem is a very interesting technical challenge and definitely a very good cause. A lot has been done in this field over the past few years, but obstacles still persist. In this article, I am offering an overview of the latest technology dedicated to this goal and invite you to discuss these findings and contribute to cracking this riddle. International Day of Sign Languages Sport is not for everyone? Sport is King, period. Since the first ancient Olympics (and probably even before that) it helped transform the competitive part of human nature into non-violent forms. It has been uniting millions of people across the globe and above political borders. It is also the ruler of the modern digital and media universe. According to the global sports market grew from $486.61 billion in 2022 to $512.14 billion in 2023 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.2%. The sports market is expected to grow further to $623.63 billion in 2027 at a CAGR of 5.0%. That is way faster than the world economy growth, which is projected to fall from an estimated 3.5% in 2022 to 3.0% in both 2023 and 2024, according to the . The global online live video sports streaming market alone was valued at $18.11 billion in 2020 and to reach $87.33 billion in 2028. Further illustrating sports’ popularity, a 2022 revealed that 31% of U.S. linear TV ad revenues depend on live sports programming, despite sports accounting for only 2.7% of the available broadcast program content. Research and Markets, International Monetary Fund is expected report by Nielsen Sports However, this huge industry misses (partly or entirely) a significant part of the world’s population. data suggests there are 70 million deaf people in the world, which is a tad less than 10% of the Earth’s 8.05-billion population. The problem progresses: the World Health Organization expects that by 2050 2.5 billion people (or roughly a quarter of all humans) will experience some degree of hearing loss. Of course, many of the sports broadcasts have subtitles. But the problem is that many deaf people have difficulty learning to read and write. In most countries, the illiteracy rate among the deaf , a truly staggering rate. Many broadcasts, especially on TV, have live sign language interpreters. But, again, there is a problem. Deaf people across the globe use more than 300 different sign languages and most of them are mutually unintelligible. It is obviously impossible to hire 300 interpreters to make one broadcast globally accessible. But what if we hire an AI instead? The UN is above 75% Sign (language) of life To fully understand the difficulty of this task, let us have a brief dive into what sign languages actually are. Historically, they were often used as lingua franca by people blessed with normal hearing, but speaking different languages. The best known example is the sign language of the in 19th-century North America. The languages of different tribes were dissimilar, but their way of life and environment were quite akin, which helped them find common symbols. For instance, a circle drawn against the sky meant the moon, or something as pale as the moon. Similar ways to communicate were used by tribes in Africa and Australia. Plains Indians However, this is not the case with sign languages used by the deaf. They have been developing independently in each region, country and sometimes they even differ from city to city. For example, American Sign Language (ASL) widely used in the US is totally different from British Sign Language even though both countries speak English. Ironically, ASL is (LSF) because a French deaf man, Laurent Clerc, was one of the first teachers for the deaf in the US in the 19th century. Contrary to a popular belief, there is no true international sign language. An attempt to create one was , conceived by the International Federation of the Deaf in 1951. However, just as its analogue for the hearing people, Esperanto, it is not nearly as popular to become a true solution. much closer to the Old French Sign Language Gestuno, now known as the International Sign Language Another important thing to keep in mind when discussing translations into sign languages, is that they are independent languages of their own, completely different from the languages we can hear. A very common misconception is that sign languages are mimicking those spoken by the hearing. On the contrary, they have a totally different linguistic structure, grammar and syntax. For instance, ASL has a topic-comment syntax, while English uses subject-object-verb constructions. So, in terms of syntax, ASL actually than it does with English. There are sign alphabets (see more about them ), but they are used to spell proper names of places and people, not to compose words. shares more with spoken Japanese here Breaking the barriers There were numerous attempts to connect spoken and sign languages for gesture recognition. Some of them date back to the 1980s. With time, more sophisticated gadgets were added, like accelerometers and all sorts of sensors. However, the success of these attempts . And anyway, most of them focused on translating sign languages to spoken languages, not the other way round. Recent developments in computer vision, speech recognition, neural networks, machine learning and AI give hope that direct translation from spoken to sign languages is also possible. using “robotic gloves” were limited at best The most common path is using 3d avatars to display sign language gestures and emotion, using speech and other data as input. A notable feature broadcast corporation in Japan enables translating sports data, like players’ names, scores etc. into sign language displayed by an animated cartoon-like avatar. The data received from the event organisers or other entities is interpreted and put into templates and then expressed by the avatar. However, only limited types of data can be translated this way. NHK says it continues to develop the technology so that the avatars can express emotions in a more human manner. developed by NHK Lenovo and a Brazilian Innovation Hub CESAR they were creating a sign language translator for hearing people employing AI. Similarly, SLAIT (which stands for Sign Language AI Translator) an educational tool that helps learn ASL in an interactive way. Although these tasks are different from our scope, the computer vision techniques and AI training models developed by these projects can be very useful in providing the translation from speech to sign language in the future. recently announced has been developing Other startups are getting closer to our topic of discussion. For instance, Signapse with a solution that can translate text into sign language displayed as a photo-realistic animated avatar motion. The company uses Generative Adversarial Networks and deep learning techniques, as well as a constantly developing video database (more on that in their peer-reviewed article ). However, this platform is aimed mostly at translating public announcements and website texts. In other words, it seems still far from real-time live translation. came up here Israeli-based startup CODA took another step forward to our goal. It developed an AI-powered audio-to-sign translation tool and claims it works . It currently offers its services in five source languages: English, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian. Next, CODA aims to add multiple different sign languages of high population countries such as India and China. “almost instantly” Arguably the closest match to our dream was presented by Baidu AI Cloud on its digital avatar platform Xiling. The platform to provide hearing-impaired audience with broadcasts of the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games. Local media said it was capable of generating digital avatars for sign language translation and live interpretation “within minutes”. was launched Conclusion The next step in developing the speech-to-sign translation would be expanding the output to as many sign languages as possible and reducing the time gap needed for translation from minutes to seconds. Both tasks represent major challenges. Adding more sign languages to the output feed means creating and permanently developing extensive databases of hand and body gestures as well as facial expressions. Reducing the time gap is even more important, as sports are all about moments. Even a minute-long gap means that the stream should be delayed or else the audience will miss the very essence of the game. Time required for translating can be reduced by building more extensive hardware infrastructure, developing databases of the most typical speech templates that can be recognised before the phrase is even finished. All of this may sound like a costly venture. But on the one hand, improving life quality for millions of people is priceless. On the other hand, we do not speak of just charity. Think of the additional audience the broadcasts would receive and the sponsor money that are in play. All in all, it may quite be a win-win game. It seems like the tech majors are also joining the race. Zippia, a career portal, recently indicated that Google sign language interpreters at more than twice the salary they would normally expect in the United States ($110,734 vs. average $43,655). At this rate, a language interpreter would get about 10% more than an average software engineer in the US ( ). This may well be a hint that we are expecting a major breakthrough soon… has been hiring $100,260 Please feel free to comment and let us join forces to find the solution!

Sign up for the Game: Can AI Make Sports Streams Accessible?

গেমটির জন্য সাইন আপ করুন: এআই কি স্পোর্টস স্ট্রিমগুলিকে অ্যাক্সেসযোগ্য করে তুলতে পারে?

Melden Sie sich für das Spiel an: Kann KI Sport-Streams zugänglich machen?

Regístrate en el juego: ¿Puede la IA hacer accesibles las transmisiones deportivas?

Inscrivez-vous au jeu : l'IA peut-elle rendre les flux sportifs accessibles ?

गेम के लिए साइन अप करें: क्या AI स्पोर्ट्स स्ट्रीम को सुलभ बना सकता है?

ゲームにサインアップ: AI でスポーツ ストリームにアクセスできるようになるか?

게임에 등록하세요: AI가 스포츠 스트림에 접근할 수 있게 만들 수 있나요?

Inscreva-se no jogo: a IA pode tornar as transmissões esportivas acessíveis?

Зарегистрируйтесь для игры: может ли ИИ сделать спортивные трансляции доступными?

Oyuna Kaydolun: Yapay Zeka Spor Yayınlarını Erişilebilir Hale Getirebilir mi?

Đăng ký trò chơi: AI có thể giúp các luồng thể thao có thể truy cập được không?

报名参加游戏：人工智能可以让体育直播变得无障碍吗？

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . VANIKORO here CHAPTER XVIII: VANIKORO This terrible spectacle was the forerunner of the series of maritime catastrophes that the was destined to meet with in its route. As long as it went through more frequented waters, we often saw the hulls of shipwrecked vessels that were rotting in the depths, and deeper down cannons, bullets, anchors, chains, and a thousand other iron materials eaten up by rust. However, on the 11th of December we sighted the Pomotou Islands, the old “dangerous group” of Bougainville, that extend over a space of 500 leagues at E.S.E. to W.N.W., from the Island Ducie to that of Lazareff. This group covers an area of 370 square leagues, and it is formed of sixty groups of islands, among which the Gambier group is remarkable, over which France exercises sway. These are coral islands, slowly raised, but continuous, created by the daily work of polypi. Then this new island will be joined later on to the neighboring groups, and a fifth continent will stretch from New Zealand and New Caledonia, and from thence to the Marquesas. Nautilus One day, when I was suggesting this theory to Captain Nemo, he replied coldly: “The earth does not want new continents, but new men.” Chance had conducted the towards the Island of Clermont-Tonnere, one of the most curious of the group, that was discovered in 1822 by Captain Bell of the Minerva. I could study now the madreporal system, to which are due the islands in this ocean. Nautilus Madrepores (which must not be mistaken for corals) have a tissue lined with a calcareous crust, and the modifications of its structure have induced M. Milne Edwards, my worthy master, to class them into five sections. The animalcule that the marine polypus secretes live by millions at the bottom of their cells. Their calcareous deposits become rocks, reefs, and large and small islands. Here they form a ring, surrounding a little inland lake, that communicates with the sea by means of gaps. There they make barriers of reefs like those on the coasts of New Caledonia and the various Pomoton islands. In other places, like those at Reunion and at Maurice, they raise fringed reefs, high, straight walls, near which the depth of the ocean is considerable. Some cable-lengths off the shores of the Island of Clermont I admired the gigantic work accomplished by these microscopical workers. These walls are specially the work of those madrepores known as milleporas, porites, madrepores, and astraeas. These polypi are found particularly in the rough beds of the sea, near the surface; and consequently it is from the upper part that they begin their operations, in which they bury themselves by degrees with the debris of the secretions that support them. Such is, at least, Darwin’s theory, who thus explains the formation of the , a superior theory (to my mind) to that given of the foundation of the madreporical works, summits of mountains or volcanoes, that are submerged some feet below the level of the sea. atolls I could observe closely these curious walls, for perpendicularly they were more than 300 yards deep, and our electric sheets lighted up this calcareous matter brilliantly. Replying to a question Conseil asked me as to the time these colossal barriers took to be raised, I astonished him much by telling him that learned men reckoned it about the eighth of an inch in a hundred years. Towards evening Clermont-Tonnerre was lost in the distance, and the route of the was sensibly changed. After having crossed the tropic of Capricorn in 135° longitude, it sailed W.N.W., making again for the tropical zone. Although the summer sun was very strong, we did not suffer from heat, for at fifteen or twenty fathoms below the surface, the temperature did not rise above from ten to twelve degrees. Nautilus On 15th of December, we left to the east the bewitching group of the Societies and the graceful Tahiti, queen of the Pacific. I saw in the morning, some miles to the windward, the elevated summits of the island. These waters furnished our table with excellent fish, mackerel, bonitos, and some varieties of a sea-serpent. On the 25th of December the sailed into the midst of the New Hebrides, discovered by Quiros in 1606, and that Bougainville explored in 1768, and to which Cook gave its present name in 1773. This group is composed principally of nine large islands, that form a band of 120 leagues N.N.S. to S.S.W., between 15° and 2° S. lat., and 164 deg. and 168° long. We passed tolerably near to the Island of Aurou, that at noon looked like a mass of green woods, surmounted by a peak of great height. Nautilus That day being Christmas Day, Ned Land seemed to regret sorely the non-celebration of “Christmas,” the family fete of which Protestants are so fond. I had not seen Captain Nemo for a week, when, on the morning of the 27th, he came into the large drawing-room, always seeming as if he had seen you five minutes before. I was busily tracing the route of the on the planisphere. The Captain came up to me, put his finger on one spot on the chart, and said this single word. Nautilus “Vanikoro.” The effect was magical! It was the name of the islands on which La Perouse had been lost! I rose suddenly. “The has brought us to Vanikoro?” I asked. Nautilus “Yes, Professor,” said the Captain. “And I can visit the celebrated islands where the Boussole and the Astrolabe struck?” “If you like, Professor.” “When shall we be there?” “We are there now.” Followed by Captain Nemo, I went up on to the platform, and greedily scanned the horizon. To the N.E. two volcanic islands emerged of unequal size, surrounded by a coral reef that measured forty miles in circumference. 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. The , having passed the outer belt of rocks by a narrow strait, found itself among breakers where the sea was from thirty to forty fathoms deep. Under the verdant shade of some mangroves I perceived some savages, who appeared greatly surprised at our approach. In the long black body, moving between wind and water, did they not see some formidable cetacean that they regarded with suspicion? Nautilus Just then Captain Nemo asked me what I knew about the wreck of La Perouse. “Only what everyone knows, Captain,” I replied. “And could you tell me what everyone knows about it?” he inquired, ironically. “Easily.” I related to him all that the last works of Dumont d’Urville had made known—works from which the following is a brief account. La Perouse, and his second, Captain de Langle, were sent by Louis XVI, in 1785, on a voyage of circumnavigation. They embarked in the corvettes Boussole and the Astrolabe, neither of which were again heard of. In 1791, the French Government, justly uneasy as to the fate of these two sloops, manned two large merchantmen, the Recherche and the Esperance, which left Brest the 28th of September under the command of Bruni d’Entrecasteaux. Two months after, they learned from Bowen, commander of the Albemarle, that the debris of shipwrecked vessels had been seen on the coasts of New Georgia. But D’Entrecasteaux, ignoring this communication—rather uncertain, besides—directed his course towards the Admiralty Islands, mentioned in a report of Captain Hunter’s as being the place where La Perouse was wrecked. They sought in vain. The Esperance and the Recherche passed before Vanikoro without stopping there, and, in fact, this voyage was most disastrous, as it cost D’Entrecasteaux his life, and those of two of his lieutenants, besides several of his crew. Captain Dillon, a shrewd old Pacific sailor, was the first to find unmistakable traces of the wrecks. On the 15th of May, 1824, his vessel, the St. Patrick, passed close to Tikopia, one of the New Hebrides. There a Lascar came alongside in a canoe, sold him the handle of a sword in silver that bore the print of characters engraved on the hilt. The Lascar pretended that six years before, during a stay at Vanikoro, he had seen two Europeans that belonged to some vessels that had run aground on the reefs some years ago. Dillon guessed that he meant La Perouse, whose disappearance had troubled the whole world. He tried to get on to Vanikoro, where, according to the Lascar, he would find numerous debris of the wreck, but winds and tides prevented him. Dillon returned to Calcutta. There he interested the Asiatic Society and the Indian Company in his discovery. A vessel, to which was given the name of the Recherche, was put at his disposal, and he set out, 23rd January, 1827, accompanied by a French agent. The Recherche, after touching at several points in the Pacific, cast anchor before Vanikoro, 7th July, 1827, in that same harbour of Vanou where the was at this time. Nautilus There it collected numerous relics of the wreck—iron utensils, anchors, pulley-strops, swivel-guns, an 18 lbs. shot, fragments of astronomical instruments, a piece of crown work, and a bronze clock, bearing this inscription—“Bazin m’a fait,” the mark of the foundry of the arsenal at Brest about 1785. There could be no further doubt. Dillon, having made all inquiries, stayed in the unlucky place till October. Then he quitted Vanikoro, and directed his course towards New Zealand; put into Calcutta, 7th April, 1828, and returned to France, where he was warmly welcomed by Charles X. But at the same time, without knowing Dillon’s movements, Dumont d’Urville had already set out to find the scene of the wreck. 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. There he learned the results of Dillon’s inquiries, and found that a certain James Hobbs, second lieutenant of the Union of Calcutta, after landing on an island situated 8° 18′ S. lat., and 156° 30′ E. long., had seen some iron bars and red stuffs used by the natives of these parts. Dumont d’Urville, much perplexed, and not knowing how to credit the reports of low-class journals, decided to follow Dillon’s track. On the 10th of February, 1828, the Astrolabe appeared off Tikopia, and took as guide and interpreter a deserter found on the island; made his way to Vanikoro, sighted it on the 12th inst., lay among the reefs until the 14th, and not until the 20th did he cast anchor within the barrier in the harbour of Vanou. On the 23rd, several officers went round the island and brought back some unimportant trifles. The natives, adopting a system of denials and evasions, refused to take them to the unlucky place. This ambiguous conduct led them to believe that the natives had ill-treated the castaways, and indeed they seemed to fear that Dumont d’Urville had come to avenge La Perouse and his unfortunate crew. However, on the 26th, appeased by some presents, and understanding that they had no reprisals to fear, they led M. Jacquireot to the scene of the wreck. There, in three or four fathoms of water, between the reefs of Pacou and Vanou, lay anchors, cannons, pigs of lead and iron, embedded in the limy concretions. The large boat and the whaler belonging to the Astrolabe were sent to this place, and, not without some difficulty, their crews hauled up an anchor weighing 1,800 lbs., a brass gun, some pigs of iron, and two copper swivel-guns. Dumont d’Urville, questioning the natives, learned too that La Perouse, after losing both his vessels on the reefs of this island, had constructed a smaller boat, only to be lost a second time. Where, no one knew. But the French Government, fearing that Dumont d’Urville was not acquainted with Dillon’s movements, had sent the sloop Bayonnaise, commanded by Legoarant de Tromelin, to Vanikoro, which had been stationed on the west coast of America. The Bayonnaise cast her anchor before Vanikoro some months after the departure of the Astrolabe, but found no new document; but stated that the savages had respected the monument to La Perouse. That is the substance of what I told Captain Nemo. “So,” he said, “no one knows now where the third vessel perished that was constructed by the castaways on the island of Vanikoro?” “No one knows.” Captain Nemo said nothing, but signed to me to follow him into the large saloon. The sank several yards below the waves, and the panels were opened. Nautilus I hastened to the aperture, and under the crustations of coral, covered with fungi, syphonules, alcyons, madrepores, through myriads of charming fish—girelles, glyphisidri, pompherides, diacopes, and holocentres—I recognised certain debris that the drags had not been able to tear up—iron stirrups, anchors, cannons, bullets, capstan fittings, the stem of a ship, all objects clearly proving the wreck of some vessel, and now carpeted with living flowers. While I was looking on this desolate scene, Captain Nemo said, in a sad voice: “Commander La Perouse set out 7th December, 1785, with his vessels La Boussole and the Astrolabe. He first cast anchor at Botany Bay, visited the Friendly Isles, New Caledonia, then directed his course towards Santa Cruz, and put into Namouka, one of the Hapai group. Then his vessels struck on the unknown reefs of Vanikoro. The Boussole, which went first, ran aground on the southerly coast. The Astrolabe went to its help, and ran aground too. The first vessel was destroyed almost immediately. The second, stranded under the wind, resisted some days. The natives made the castaways welcome. They installed themselves in the island, and constructed a smaller boat with the debris of the two large ones. Some sailors stayed willingly at Vanikoro; the others, weak and ill, set out with La Perouse. They directed their course towards the Solomon Islands, and there perished, with everything, on the westerly coast of the chief island of the group, between Capes Deception and Satisfaction.” “How do you know that?” “By this, that I found on the spot where was the last wreck.” Captain Nemo showed me a tin-plate box, stamped with the French arms, and corroded by the salt water. He opened it, and I saw a bundle of papers, yellow but still readable. They were the instructions of the naval minister to Commander La Perouse, annotated in the margin in Louis XVI’s handwriting. “Ah! it is a fine death for a sailor!” said Captain Nemo, at last. “A coral tomb makes a quiet grave; and I trust that I and my comrades will find no other.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1994). Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/164/164-h/164-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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