by Jules Verne
Captain Nemo was walking ahead, his companion a few steps behind us. Conseil and I stayed close together, as if we could talk through our metal shells. I no longer felt the weight of my clothing, my shoes, my air tank, nor the weight of the thick sphere in which my head was shaken round like an almond in its shell. All these objects, with water on every side, lost a weight equal to the liquid displaced, and I felt very comfortable, thanks to the physical law discovered by Archimedes. I was no longer an inert object but could move quite freely.
The light astonished me with its power of penetration, for it lit up the ground as far as 30 feet from the surface. The sunlight easily penetrated the aqueous substance but its colours dissolved. I could see objects 100 metres away quite clearly. Beyond that, the depths were tinted in fine shades of ultramarine, becoming bluer in the distance and fading into a sort of nebulous darkness. The water all round me was in effect a sort of air, denser than the terrestrial atmosphere but almost as clear. I could see the calm surface of the sea above my head.
We were walking over fine smooth sand, not rippled like beaches that retain the waves’ imprint. This dazzling carpet reflected the sunlight with surprising intensity, almost like a mirror. Hence a pervasive dazzle that filled the liquid molecules. Will I be believed if I say that at a depth of 30 feet, I could see as clearly as in the open air?
For quarter of an hour I walked over the glowing sand, strewn with the impalpable dust of shells. Although the hull of the Nautilus, silhouetted like a long reef, slowly disappeared, when night fell in the depth of the waters, its searchlight would send out rays of perfect brilliance to help us find our way back on board. This will be difficult to understand for anyone who has only seen those whitish, clear-cut beams on land. There the dust filling the air gives the rays the appearance of a luminous mist; but on the sea’s surface, and under it, the electric shafts are transmitted with incomparable purity.
We moved over a sandy plain which seemed so vast as to be limitless. I was using my hands to push aside the liquid curtains which then closed up again behind me, and my footprints were being quickly erased by the water pressure.
Soon I could make out the shapes of a few objects, hazy in the distance. I observed a magnificent foreground of rocks, carpeted with the finest zoophytes, and I was immediately struck by an effect peculiar to this environment.
It was ten in the morning. The sun’s rays struck the surface of the waves at an oblique angle, and the light was decomposed by the refraction as if passing through a prism. It fell on the flowers, rocks, plantlets, shells, and polyps, and shaded their edges with the seven colours of the solar spectrum. It was a marvel, a feast for the eyes, this interweaving of coloured tones, a true kaleidoscope of green, yellow, orange, violet, indigo, and blue, the complete contents of a crazy colourist’s palette! Oh, why could I not tell Conseil the vivid sensations intoxicating my brain and vie with him in admiring exclamations! Why was I not able to convey my thoughts in that sign language used by Captain Nemo and his companion! For lack of better, I talked to myself, I shouted out in the copper vessel on my head, perhaps using up more air in vain words than I should have.
On seeing this splendid spectacle, Conseil had stopped, as had I. Clearly the good chap, in the presence of these representatives of zoophytes and molluscs, was classifying, constantly classifying. Polyps and Echinodermata lay in profusion on the ground. The varied Isidae, the Cornularia which lived in isolation, the clumps of virgin oculinidae formerly called ‘white coral’, the fungus coral bristling like mushrooms, and the anemones adhering by their muscular discs — all constituted a flowerbed, spangled with porpoids and their involucres of blue-tinged tentacles, with starfish studded in the sand, with verrucous astrophytons, a fine lace embroidered by naiads’ hands and whose garlands swung in the slight undulations as we passed. I was unhappy at crushing under my feet the brilliant specimens of molluscs strewn in their thousands, the concentric combshells, the hammer-shells, the donaxes, veritable jumping shells, the top-shells, the red helmets, the angel-wing strombs, the aplysias, and so many other products of the inexhaustible ocean. But we could not stop, and headed on, whilst above our heads sailed the schools of Portuguese men-of-war trailing their ultramarine tentacles, jellyfish whose opaline or delicate rose umbrellas festooned with sky-blue strakes shielded us from the sunlight, and pelagic panopea, which would have sprinkled our path with phosphorescent gleams, had it been dark!
I glimpsed all these marvels within a quarter of a mile, scarcely stopping as I followed Captain Nemo, waving me on. Soon the ground changed. The sandy plain was replaced by a layer of sticky mud that the Americans call ‘ooze’, composed exclusively of siliceous and limestone shells. Then we passed through a field of pelagic seaweed plants growing vigorously, not yet torn away by the water. These lawns of fine-woven material felt soft underfoot and could be compared to the silkiest rugs made by man’s hand.
But just as the vegetation stretched before our feet, our heads were also catered for. A trellis of marine plants, from the exuberant family of algae of more than two thousand known species, crisscrossed the surface of the water. I could see long floating ribbons of sea-wracks, some globular and some tubular: there were Laurencia, Cladostephi with slender foliage, and water leaves like cactus fans. I noticed that the green plants kept closer to the surface, whilst the red ones were at medium depth, leaving the black or brown water-plants the task of forming the gardens and flowerbeds of the furthermost depths of the ocean.
These seaweeds are truly one of the miracles of creation, one of the marvels of the world’s flora. This family produces both the smallest and the biggest vegetation on the globe. For if forty thousand of these imperceptible plantlets have been counted in 5 square millimetres, wracks have also been found whose length exceeds 500 metres.
We had left the Nautilus about an hour and a half before. It was nearly midday. I realized this from the vertical sunlight, no longer refracted. The magical colours were slowly disappearing, and the emerald and sapphire nuances faded from our firmament. We were walking with a regular step that resonated on the ground with astonishing intensity. The slightest sounds were transmitted at a speed to which the ear is not accustomed on dry land. The reason being that water is a better conductor of sound than air, and transmits it four times as quickly.
Soon the ground went down more steeply. The light took on a uniform colour. We had reached a depth of 100 metres, and were now at a pressure of 10 atmospheres. But my diving suit had been designed in such a way that I was not affected at all. I merely felt a certain stiffness in my fingers, and even this discomfort quickly disappeared. As for the fatigue that should have resulted from a two-hour excursion kitted out in such an unfamiliar way, it was non-existent. Helped by the water, I was moving with surprising ease.
Even at 300 feet, I could still see the sunlight, if faintly. Its intense brilliance had given way to a reddish twilight intermediate between day and night. But we could still see well enough to find our way, and did not yet need to switch on our Ruhmkorff lamps.
Suddenly Captain Nemo stopped. He waited for me to catch up, and pointed to some dark masses against the shadows not far away.
‘These must be the forests of Crespo Island,’ I thought. I was not mistaken.
17
An Underwater Forest
We had finally reached the edge of the forest, doubtless one of the most beautiful in Captain Nemo’s immense dominion. He considered it his own, claiming the same rights as the first men in the first days of the world. In any case, who could dispute his possession of the underwater property? What braver pioneer could come, axe in hand, to cut down the dark brushwood?
The forest was made of huge tree-like plants, and as soon as we went under their vast arches, our eyes were struck by the forms of their branches, remarkable shapes I had never seen before.
None of the grasses carpeting the ground, none of the branches sprouting on the shrubs crept or drooped, and none stretched out horizontally. A
ll rose towards the surface. There was not a single filament, not a single blade, however thin, which did not stand up as straight as iron stalks. The wracks and the creepers grew in rigid perpendicular lines determined by the density of the element that had given them birth. The plants were motionless, but when I shifted them with my hand, they immediately moved back to their original positions. It was the realm of the vertical.
I soon got used to this bizarre arrangement and to the semi-darkness enveloping us. The ground of the forest was strewn with sharp rocks, difficult to avoid. The underwater flora seemed relatively complete, even richer perhaps than in a tropical or Arctic zone, where there is less variety. For a while, however, I involuntarily mixed up the kingdoms, taking zoophytes for hydrophytes, animals for plants. And who wouldn’t have made such a mistake? Flora and fauna were so close in this submarine world!
I noticed that all the products of the vegetable kingdom were only lightly attached to the ground. Devoid of roots, indifferent to the fixed points they were tied to, whether sand, shells, tests, or pebbles, they merely needed them as a point of contact, not for life. These plants were self-propagating, and the essence of their existence was in the water that bore and nourished them. Most of them did not produce leaves but lamellas of fantastic shapes, although limited to a narrow range of colours: only pink, crimson, green, olive, fawn, and brown. I again saw, but this time not dried like the specimens in the Nautilus, Padinae pavoni in fans seeming to implore the breeze, scarlet rose-tangles, laminaria extending their edible young shoots, threadlike flexuous Nereocystis opening out to reach a height of 15 metres, clumps of acetabulums with stems growing from the top, and many other pelagic plants, all without flowers. ‘A strange aberration,’ one witty naturalist* has said, ‘where the animal kingdom flowers and the vegetable kingdom does not!’
Between the various shrubs as big as trees in the temperate zones, or else under their humid shade, grew genuine bushes with living flowers, hedges of zoophytes on which bloomed meandrine corals crisscrossed with meandering furrows, yellowish Caryophylli with diaphanous tentacles, cespitose clumps of zoantharians, and, to complete the illusion, fish flies flying from branch to branch like a swarm of humming birds, while yellow Lepisanthes, with bristling jaws and sharp scales, dactylopterous and Monocanthidean, rose from under our feet, like a flock of snipe.
At about one o’clock Captain Nemo gave the signal to halt. For my part I was quite pleased, as we stretched out under a bower of aralias, whose long thin blades stood up like arrows.
I found this rest period delightful. The only thing missing was the charm of conversation. But it was impossible to speak, impossible to reply. I merely brought my big copper head close to Conseil’s. I could see the worthy man’s eyes shining with pleasure, and to show his satisfaction he moved about within his carapace in the most comical way imaginable.
After our four-hour march, I was astonished not to feel ravenous. Why my stomach behaved like this, I cannot say. But in contrast, I felt an uncontrollable desire to sleep, as happens with all divers. My eyes quickly closed behind the thick glass, and I fell into an irresistible slumber that until then only the movement of walking had been able to fight. I was in fact imitating Captain Nemo and his burly companion who were already stretched out in the crystal limpidity, fast asleep.
How long I was out I could not calculate; but when I woke again, the sun seemed to be already going down towards the horizon. Captain Nemo had already got up, and I was just stretching when a startling sight brought me suddenly to my feet.
A few paces away, a monstrous sea spider, 3 feet tall, was looking at me with its shifty eyes, ready to throw itself on me. Although my diving suit was thick enough to protect me from the animal’s stings, I could not prevent a shudder of horror. Conseil and the sailor from the Nautilus woke up just then. Captain Nemo pointed out the hideous crustacean to his companion, and the animal was immediately knocked down with a blow from his rifle butt: I saw the monster’s dreadful legs twisting in terrible convulsions.
This encounter made me realize that other, more redoubtable animals surely haunted these dark depths, and that my diving suit would not protect me from their attacks. I hadn’t thought of it until then, but decided to keep a watchful eye open. I imagined in any case that this halt was as far as our excursion would go; but I was mistaken for, instead of returning to the Nautilus, Captain Nemo continued on his daring venture.
The ground was still descending, its slope getting steeper and leading us into greater depths. It must have been about three o’clock when we reached a narrow gully between high vertical walls, at about 150 metres’ depth. Thanks to the quality of our equipment, we had gone 90 metres further than the limit nature seemed to have imposed on man’s underwater expeditions.
I say 150 metres, although no instrument allowed me to calculate the depth. But I did know that even in the clearest seas the sunlight could penetrate no further. It was at this precise point that the darkness became intense. Nothing could be seen at ten paces. I was therefore groping my way along when I suddenly saw a bright white light. Captain Nemo had just switched on his electric lamp. His companion did likewise. Conseil and I followed their example. By turning a screw, I established contact between the coil and the glass spiral, and the sea, lit up by our four lanterns, was illuminated for 25 metres around.
Captain Nemo continued to force his way into the dark depths of the forest whose shrubs were growing scarcer and scarcer. I noticed that vegetable life was disappearing faster than animal life. The pelagic plants were already forsaking the ground which had become arid, although an enormous number of animals could still be seen — zoophytes, articulates, molluscs, and fish.
While walking, I was thinking that the light from our Ruhmkorff lamps would automatically attract the inhabitants of these dark levels.
But if they did come nearer, they still kept at a distance that frustrated the huntsmen. Several times I saw Captain Nemo stopping and aiming his gun; then, after a moment’s observation, he would get up again and resume walking.
Finally, at about four o’clock, our stunning expedition came to an end. A splendid rock wall of imposing height rose up in front: a jumble of gigantic blocks, an enormous cliff of granite, with dark grottoes leading into it but no practicable way up. This was the underwater coast of Crespo Island. This was land.
The captain abruptly stopped. His signal brought us to a halt, for however much I wanted to go beyond the wall, I too had to stop. Here Captain Nemo’s realm finished. He did not wish to leave it. Beyond lay that portion of the globe where he would never again set foot.
We started back. Captain Nemo had taken the lead of our little troop once more, finding his way along without the slightest hesitation. I thought I could see that we were not following the same path back to the Nautilus. The new route, very steep and thus very difficult, brought us quickly up towards the surface. However, this return to the upper strata was not so sudden that decompression occurred too quickly, for this would have caused grave disorders to our bodies, producing those internal injuries so fatal to divers. Very soon daylight came back and grew stronger, and since the sun was already low on the horizon, the refraction again gave many objects a spectral ring.
At ten metres’ depth we were walking through a swarm of small fish of every sort, more plentiful than the birds of the air, and more lively; but no aquatic game worth a gun-shot had yet appeared before our eyes.
All of a sudden, I saw the captain swiftly aiming his weapon and following an object moving amongst the shrubbery. The shot went off, I heard a faint hissing sound, and an animal fell stricken a few paces away.
It was a magnificent sea otter, an Enhydra, the only quadruped that is exclusively marine. The five-foot otter was surely very valuable. Its skin, rich brown on top and silver underneath, was one of those admirable furs that are so sought after on the Russian and Chinese markets; the fineness and sheen of its coat meant it was worth at least two thousand francs. I admired this str
ange mammal with its rotund head and short ears, round eyes, white whiskers like a cat’s, webbed and clawed feet, and bushy tail. This precious carnivore, tracked and hunted down by fishermen, is becoming extremely rare, and it has taken refuge principally in the northern Pacific, where its species will probably soon become extinct.*
Captain Nemo’s companion came and picked up the animal and loaded it on his shoulder, as we set off again.
For an hour the plain of sand stretched out before our feet. It often rose to less than two metres from the surface. I could then see our image clearly reflected upside down: above us appeared an identical troop, reproducing all our movements and gestures, identical in every point except they were marching with heads inverted and feet in the air.
Another effect to be noted. This was the passage of thick clouds which formed and disappeared very quickly; but on reflection, I realized that these so-called clouds were due merely to variations in the height of the long waves; and I also noticed the foaming white horses produced on the surface by the breaking crests. I was even able to follow the shadows of large birds passing over our heads as they lightly skimmed the surface.
It was then that I witnessed one of the finest shots ever to play on the heart-strings of a hunter. A sizeable bird with a large wingspan, clearly visible, was gliding towards us. Captain Nemo’s companion aimed and shot at it when it was only a few metres above the waves. The animal fell down dead, and dropped within reach of the skilful hunter, who picked it up. It was an albatross of the finest class, an admirable specimen of those pelagic birds.
Our progress had not been interrupted by this incident. For two hours we followed sandy plains alternating with seaweed-strewn prairies, very difficult to negotiate. I could indeed hardly take another step, when I noticed a vague glimmer breaking the watery darkness about half a mile off. It was the Nautilus’s searchlight. Within twenty minutes we would be on board, able to breathe as I wished, for I felt that the air from my tank was no longer rich enough in oxygen. But I hadn’t reckoned on an encounter which slightly postponed our arrival.
