Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XVIII. Four Thousand Leagues Under the Pacific By the next morning, November the 18th, I was fully recovered from my exhaustion of the day before, and I climbed onto the platform just as the Nautilus chief officer was pronouncing his daily phrase.
It then occurred to me that these words either referred to the state of the sea, or that they meant there's nothing inside. And in truth, the ocean was deserted, not a sail on the horizon. The tips of Crespo Island had disappeared during the night. The sea, absorbing every colour of the prism except its blue rays,
reflected a ladder in every direction and sported a wonderful indigo tint. The undulating waves regularly ticked on the appearance of watered silk with wide stripes. I was marvelling at this magnificent ocean view when Captain Nemo appeared. He didn't seem to notice my presence and began a series of astronomical observations. Then his operations finished.
He went and leaned his elbow on the beacon housing, his eyes draying over the surface of the ocean. Meanwhile, some twenty of the Nautilus sailors, all energetic well-built fellows, climbed onto the platform. They'd come to pull up the nets left in our wake during the night. These seamen obviously belonged to different nationalities,
although indications of European physical traits could be seen in them all. If I'm not mistaken, I recognise some Irishmen, some Frenchmen and a few Slavs, and a native of either Greece or Crete. Even so, these men were frugal of speech and used among themselves only that bizarre dialect was origin I couldn't even guess, so I had to give up any notions of questioning them.
The nets were hauled on board. They were a breed of trawl resembling those used off the Normandy coast. Huge pouches held half open by a floating pole and a chain laced through the low meshes. Trailing in this way from these iron glove makers, the resorting receptacles scoured the ocean floor and collected every marine exhibit in their path.
That day they gathered up some unusual specimens from these fish-filled waterways. Anglerfish whose comical movements qualify them for their epithet clowns, black cumbersome anglers equipped with their antennas, undulating triggerfish, encircled by little red bands, bloated puffers whose venom is extremely insidious,
some olive-hued lampreys, snipefish covered with silver scales. Cutlass fish whose electrocuting power equals that of the electric eel and the electric ray. Scaly featherbacks with brown crosswire bands, greenish codfish, several varieties of gobby, etc.
Finally, some fish of larger proportions, a one-meter tack with a prominent head, several fine benite from the genus scumber decked out in the colours blue and silver, and three magnificent tuna whose high speeds couldn't save them from all trawl. I estimate that the cast of the net brought in more than one thousand pounds of fish.
It was a fine catch but not surprising. In essence, these nets stayed in our wake for several hours, incarcerating an entire aquatic world in prisons made of tread. So we were never lacking in provisions of the highest quality, which the Nautilus speed and the lure of its electric light could continually replenish.
These various exhibits from the sea were immediately lowered down the hatch in the direction of the storage lockers, some to be eaten fresh, others to be preserved. After its fishing was finished and its air supply renewed, I thought the Nautilus would resume its underwater excursion, and I was getting ready to return to my stateroom,
and Captain Nemo turned to me and said without further preamble, Look at this ocean, Professor. Doesn't it have the actual gift of life? Doesn't it experience both anger and affection? Last evening it went to sleep, just as we did, and there it is,
waking up after a peaceful night. No hellos or good mornings for this gent. You would have thought that this eccentric individual was simply continuing a conversation we'd already started. See, he went on, it's waking up under the sun caresses. It's going to relieve its daily existence.
What a fascinating field of study lies in watching the play of its organisms. It owns a pulse and arteries, it has spasms, and I sighed with the scholarly Commander More, who discovered that it has circulation as real as the circulation of blood in animals. I'm sure that Captain Nemo expected no replies from me,
and it seemed pointless to pitch in with, Ah, yes, exactly, or how right you are. Rather, he was simply talking to himself with long pauses between sentences. He was mediating out loud. Yes, he said, the ocean owns a genuine circulation, and it started going, the creator of all things,
as only to increase its heat, salt, and microscopic animal life. In essence, heat creates the different densities that leads to currents and counter currents, evaporation, which is nil in the high Arctic regions, and very active in equatorial zones, brings about a constant interchange of tropical and polar waters.
What's more, I've detected those falling and rising currents that makes up the ocean's true breathing. I've seen a molecule of salt water heat up at the surface, sink into the depths, reach maximum density at minus two centigrade, then cool off, grow lighter, and rise again.
At the poles, you will see the consequences of this phenomenon, and through this law of far-seeing nature, you'll understand why water can freeze only at the surface. As the captain was finishing his sentence, I said to myself, the pole? Is this brazen individual claiming he'll take us even to that location?
Meanwhile, the captain fell silent and stared at the element he had studied so droughtly and unceasingly. Then, going on, Salt, he said. Fill the sea in considerable quantities, Professor, and if you removed all its dissolved shoreline content,
you'd create a mass measuring 4,500,000 cubic leagues, which, if it were spread all over the globe, would form a layer more than 10 metres high. And don't think that the presence of these salts is due merely to some whim of nature. No, they make ocean water less open to evaporation and prevent winds from carrying off excessive amounts of steam, which, when condensing, would submerge to temperate zones.
Salt's play a leading role, the role of stabiliser, for the general ecology of the globe. Captain Nemo stopped, straightened up, took a few steps along the platform and returned to me. As for those billions of tiny animals, he went on, those infusoria that live by the millions in one droplet of water,
800,000, which are needed to weigh one milligram. Their role is no less important. They absorb the marine salts, they assimilate the solid elements in the water, and since they create coral and mad rapores, they're the true builders of limestone continents. And so, after they've finished depriving all water drops of its mineral nutrients,
the droplets gets lighter, rises to the surface, there, absorbs more salt left behind through evaporation, gets heavier, sinks again, and brings those tiny animals new elements to absorb. The outcome, a double current rising and falling, constant movement, constant life, more intense than on land, more impudent, more infinite. Such life blooms in every part of this ocean, an element fatal to man, they say,
but vital to myriads of animals and to me. When Captain Nemo spoke in this way, he was transfigured, and he filled me with extraordinary excitement. There, he added, out there lies true existence, and I can imagine the founding of nautical towns, clusters of underwater households that like the nautilus would return to the surface of the sea to breathe each morning, free towns if ever there were, independent cities,
then again, who knows where there's some tyrant. Captain Nemo finished his sentence with a vehement gesture, then, addressing me directly as if to drive away an ugly thought, Professor Aronax, he asked me, do you know the depths of the ocean floor? At least, Captain, I know what the major surrounding tells us.
Could you quote them to me so I can double check them as the need arises? Here, I replied, are a few of them that sticks to my memory. If I'm not mistaken, an average depth of 8,200 metres was found in the North Atlantic, and 2,500 metres in the Mediterranean. The most remarkable surroundings were taken in the South Atlantic,
near the 35th parallel, and they go 12,000 metres, 14,091 metres, and 15,149 metres. All in all, it's estimated that if the sea bottom were made level, its average depth would be about 7 kilometres. Well, Professor, Captain Nemo replied, we'll show you better than that, I hope. As for the average depth of this part of the Pacific, I'll inform you that it's a mere 4,000 metres.
This said, Captain Nemo headed to the hatch and disappeared down the ladder. I followed him and went back to the main lounge. The propeller was instantly set in motion and the log gave us speed as 20 miles per hour. Over the ensuing days and weeks, Captain Nemo was very frugal with his visits. I saw him only at rare intervals.
His Chief Officer regularly fixed the positions I found reported on the chart, and in such a way that I could exactly plot an autoless cause. In sale, I told his friend about the wonders of our undersea stroll, and the Canadian was sorry he hadn't gone along, but I hoped an opportunity would arise for a visit to the forest of Oceania.
Almost every day, the panels in the lounge were open for some hours, and our eyes never tired of probing the mysteries of the underwater world. The Nautilus General heading was south-east, and it stayed at a depth between 100 and 150 metres. However, from Lord Nosewaltwim, one day it did a diagonal dive by means of its landing fins,
reaching Strata, located 2,000 metres underwater. A thermometer indicated a temperature of 4.25 centigrade, which at this depth seemed to be a temperature common to all latitudes. On November 26, at 3 o'clock in the morning, the Nautilus cleared the Tropic of Cancer at longitude 172 degrees.
On the 27th, it passed inside of the Wine Islands, where the famous Captain Cook met his death on February 14, 1779. By then, we had fared 4,860 leagues from our starting point. When I arrived on the platform that morning, I saw the islands of O'Wye two miles lured,
the largest of the seven islands making up this group. I could clearly distinguish the tilled soils on its outskirts, the various mountain chains running parallel with its coastline, and its volcanoes crowned by Mauna Kea, whose elevation is 5,000 metres above sea level. Among other specimens from these waterways
were nets brought up from peacock-tailed labalarian coral. Polyps flattened into stylish shapes and unique to this part of the ocean. The Nautilus kept its south-easterly heading. On December 1, it cut the equator at longitude 142 degrees, and on the fourth of the same month,
after a quick crossing marked by no incident, we raised the Marquessess Islands. Three miles off, in latitude 8 degrees 57 south and longitude 139 degrees 32 west, I spotted Martin Point on Nuku Hiva, chief member of this island group that belongs to France.
I could make out only its wooden mountains on the horizon, because Captain Nemo hated to hug shore. There, our nets brought up some fine fish samples. Dolphin fish with their shore fins, gold tails, and flesh that's unrivaled in the entire world.
Genus Illuginus. They were nearly denuded of scales but exquisite in flavour. Knife jaws with bony beaks, yellowish albacore that were as tasty as Bonite. All fish worth classifying in the ship's pantry. After leaving these delightful islands,
to the protection of the French flag, the Nautilus covered about 2,000 miles from December 4 to the 11th. Its navigating was marked by an encounter with an immerse school of squid, unusual mollusks that are near neighbours of the cuttlefish. French fishermen give them the name cockled fish,
and they belong to the class Cephaloptera, family Dibranchiata, consisting of themselves together with cuttlefish and arconuts. The naturalists of antiquity made a special study of them, and these animals furnished many rival figures of speech for soapbox orators, as well as excellent dishes for the tables of rich citizens.
Avoid to believe Athanas, a Greek physician predating Galen. It was during the night of December 9 to 10 that a Nautilus encountered this army of distinctly nocturnal. They numbered in the millions. They were migrating from the temperate zones towards the zones still warmer, following the itineraries of herring and sardines.
We stared at them through a thick glass windows. They swam backward with tremendous speed, moving by means of their locomotive tubes, chasing fish and mollusks, eating the little ones eaten by the big ones and tossing in inscribable confusion, the tender feet that nature has rooted in their heads like a hairpiece of pneumatic snakes.
Despite its speed, the Nautilus navigated for several hours in the midst of this school of animals, and its net brought up an incalculable number, among which I recognised all nine species that Professor Orbingley has classified as native to the Pacific Ocean. During this crossing, the sea continually loged us with the most marvellous sights. Its viarity was infinite.
It changed its setting and decor for the mere pleasure of our eyes, and we were called upon not simply to contemplate the works of our Creator in the midst of the liquid element, but also to probe the ocean's most daunting mysteries. During the day of December 11th, I was busy reading in the main lounge. Ned, Lan and Kinsale were observing the luminous waters through the gaping panels.
The Nautilus was motionless, its ballast tank full. It was sitting at a depth of 1,000 metres, in the comparatively unpopulated region of the ocean, where only larger fish put in occasional appearance. Just then I was studying a delightful book by Jean Mazet, the servants of the stomach and savouring its ingenious teachings,
when Kinsale interrupted my reading. But Master kindly came here for an instant, he said to me in an odd voice. What is it, Kinsale? It's something that Master should see. I stood up, went, leaned on my elbows before the window, and I saw it.
In the broad electric daylight, an enormous black mass, quite motionless, hung suspended in the midst of the waters. I absorbed it carefully, trying to find out the nature of this gigantic excitation. Then a sudden thought crossed my mind. A ship, I exclaimed.
Yes, the Canadian replied. A disabled craft that's sinking straight down. Ned, Lan was not mistaken. We were in the presence of a ship with severed shrouds still hung from their clasps. It's all locked in good condition, and it must have gone under only a few hours before.
The stumps of three mast, chopped off two feet above the deck, indicated a flooding ship that had been forced to sacrifice its masting. But it had healed sideways, filling completely, and it was listing to port even yet. A sorry sight. This carcass lost under the waves, but sorry still was the site on its deck,
where lashed with ropes to prevent their being washed overboard. Some human corpses still lay. I counted four of them, four men. One still standing at the helm, then a woman, half way out of the skylight on the after deck, holding a child in her arms.
This woman was young. Under the brilliant light of the nautilus rays, I could make out her features, which the water hadn't yet decomposed. With the supreme method, she had lifted her child above her head, and the poor little creature's arms were still twined around its mother's neck.
The posture of the four seamen seemed ghastly to me, twisted from convulsive movements, as if making a last effort to break loose from the ropes that bound them to the ship. And the helmsman, standing alone, calmer, his face smooth and serious, his grizzled hair plastered to his brow, his hands clutching the wheel,
seemed even yet to be guiding his wrecked three master to the ocean depths. What a scene! We stood dumbstruck, hearts pounding, before this shipwreck caught in the act. As if it had been photographed in its final moments, so to speak. And already I could see enormous sharks moving in,
eyes ablaze, drawn by the lure of human flesh. Meanwhile, turning, the nautilus made a circle around the singing ship, and for an instant I could read the board on its stern. The Florida, Sunderland, England. The Florida, Sunderland, England.
In 1913, recording by Elie Marie Hoftenqvester.
