Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas

by Jules Verne

  I had remained about twenty paces behind, when suddenly I saw Captain Nemo coming back towards me. With his strong hand he pushed me down, whilst his companion did the same to Conseil. I did not know what to make of this brusque attack, but felt reassured when I realized that the captain was lying down near me and remaining motionless.

  I was stretched out on the ground in the shelter of a seaweed bush when, raising my head, I noticed huge shapes moving noisily past, giving out phosphorescent gleams.

  My blood froze in my veins! I had recognized the formidable sharks threatening us. It was a pair of blue sharks, terrible beasts with enormous tails and dull glassy eyes, which secrete a phosphorescent substance through holes near their muzzles. Monstrous fireflies* that can chew an entire man in their iron jaws! I was not aware whether Conseil was busy classifying them, but I know that for my part, I scarcely studied their silver bellies and menacing mouths bristling with teeth from a scientific point of view, but more as a potential prey than as a naturalist.

  Very fortunately, these voracious animals cannot see very well. They passed by without noticing us, brushing past us with their brownish fins; and as if by a miracle we escaped this threat, certainly more dangerous than an encounter with a tiger in the heart of the jungle.

  Half an hour later, guided by the electric beam, we reached the Nautilus. The outside door was still open, and Captain Nemo closed it as soon as we were back in the first compartment. Then he pressed a button. I could hear the pumps working inside the ship, felt the water going down around me, and in a few moments the compartment was entirely empty. The inside door was opened, and we moved into the cloakroom.

  There our diving suits were taken off, not without difficulty; and totally exhausted, faint from lack of food and sleep, I returned to my room — in a state of complete wonder at this extraordinary excursion over the ocean floor.

  18

  Four Thousand Leagues under the Pacific

  The following morning, 18 November, I had completely recovered from my fatigue of the day before. I went up on the platform just as the Nautilus’s first officer was enunciating his daily phrase. The idea then came to me that it referred to the state of the sea, and in particular that it meant ‘we have nothing in sight’.

  The ocean was indeed deserted. Not a sail to be seen. The heights of Crespo Island had vanished overnight. The sea absorbed all the colours of the spectrum except blue, which it reflected in every direction, and so took on an admirable shade of indigo. A wavering rainbow with broad bands appeared frequently above the rolling waves.

  I was admiring the magnificent vision when Captain Nemo emerged. He did not seem to notice me, and began a series of astronomical observations. Then, his work over, he went to lean on the searchlight casing and gazed abstractedly at the surface of the ocean.

  Meanwhile about twenty of the Nautilus’s sailors, all strong, strapping men, had arrived on the platform. They had come to pull in the nets, left to drag overnight. They clearly belonged to different nations, although the European type could be discerned in all of them. I recognized what were clearly Irish, French, a few Slavs, a Greek, and a Cretan.* These men were sparing of words, and used amongst themselves only that bizarre language whose origin I could not begin to guess. As a result I had to give up any hope of asking questions.

  The nets were pulled on board. These were trawls like those used on the Normandy coasts, huge pouches kept half-open by a floating yard and a chain threaded through the lower meshes. The pouches, dragged along by their metal gantries, swept the bottom of the ocean and gathered in all its produce as they moved. That day, they brought in some strange specimens of these fishing waters: angler fish whose comic movements have given them the name of histrions, black Commerson’s fish with antennae, undulating triggerfish with thin red stripes, expanding-tetrodons with an extremely subtle venom, a few olive-hued lampreys, pipefish covered in silvery scales, trichiures whose electric power is equal to that of the electric eel and ray, scaly notopterids with brown transversal stripes, greenish cod, several varieties of gobies, etc.; and finally a few fish of greater size, a metre-long scad with a large head, a few fine bonito mackerel bedecked in blue and silver, and three magnificent tuna whose speed had not saved them from the trawl.

  I estimated that this operation was netting nearly half a ton of fish. It was a good catch, but not unexpected. The nets had been dragging for several hours and had captured a whole aquatic world in their stranded prison. We were guaranteed indefinite supplies of food of excellent quality, thanks to the Nautilus’s speed and the attraction of its electric light.

  These diverse products of the sea were straightaway lowered through the hatch towards the storerooms, some to be eaten fresh and others preserved.

  Once the fishing was over and the air supplies renewed, I thought that the Nautilus would continue its underwater journey. I was getting ready to return to my room, when Captain Nemo turned and said without preamble:

  ‘Look at this ocean, Dr Aronnax, is it not endowed with an authentic life of its own? Does it not have its angers and its moments of tenderness? Yesterday it went to sleep just like us, and now it is waking up again after a peaceful night!’

  Neither good-day nor good morning! Wouldn’t one have thought that this strange character was continuing a conversation from before?

  ‘Look,’ he added; ‘it is awakening in the sun’s caresses! It is again going to live its usual life! How captivating it is to study this organism’s full cycle! It has its pulse and arteries and it has its contractions, and I entirely agree with the scientist Maury, who discovered a genuine circulation in it exactly like the blood in animals.’

  It was evident that Captain Nemo was not expecting a reply, and it seemed pointless to offer responses of ‘clearly’, ‘yes, definitely’, and ‘you’re quite right’. He was speaking mainly to himself, leaving a long gap after each sentence. He was thinking out loud.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the ocean has a real circulation, and to start it off, the Creator of all things merely had to increase the caloric,* salt, and animalculae in it. The caloric produces different densities, which then create currents and counter-currents. Evaporation is negligible in the polar regions but very swift in the tropical zones, and so produces a permanent interchange between the tropical and polar waters. I have also been able to detect currents going from top to bottom and back up again, which truly form the ocean’s respiration. I have observed molecules of salt water heating up on the surface, descending towards the depths, reaching their maximum density at -2°, then cooling further, becoming lighter and starting to move back up again. You will see the consequences of this phenomenon at the Poles,* and you will understand why, through this law of far-sighted nature, ice can form only on the surface of the waters!’

  While Captain Nemo was finishing his sentence, I said to myself: ‘The Pole! Does this intrepid individual claim he can take us there?’

  The captain had meanwhile fallen silent and was examining the element he so completely, so unceasingly studied. Then continuing:

  ‘There are large quantities of salt dissolved in the sea, Dr Aronnax, and if you were to take it all out, you would have a mass of 4½ million cubic leagues which, if spread over the whole globe, would form a layer more than 10 metres thick.* And do not think that the salt might only be there due to a caprice of nature. No; it makes sea water less subject to evaporation, and so prevents the winds from carrying off too much water vapour, which would then fall as rain and swamp the temperate zones. A huge role, a role as stabilizer of the globe’s overall economy!

  Captain Nemo fell silent, then straightened up and took a few steps across the platform, before finally coming back towards me.

  ‘As for the infusoria,’ he continued, ‘those billions of animalculae, their role is no less important. The tiniest drop contains millions of them, and eight hundred thousand are required to make one milligram. They absorb the sea salt, they assimilate the solid component from the water, the
y build the corals and the madrepores, and so are the real builders of the limestone landmasses! And then the drop of water, deprived of its mineral sustenance, becomes lighter, rises to the surface, absorbs salts left there by evaporation, grows heavier, descends again, and brings back down new material for the animalculae to absorb. Hence a double current, rising and falling, and constant movement, continuous life! Life more intense than on land, more exuberant, more immeasurable, blossoming in every part of the ocean, a deadly habitat for man, it has been said, a life-giving element for the myriads of animals — and for me!’

  When Captain Nemo spoke in this way, he was transformed and he produced in me an extraordinary emotion.

  ‘Here is real life!’ he added. ‘And I could imagine founding cities in the sea, clusters of submerged dwellings, which, like the Nautilus, would come up each morning to breathe on the surface of the oceans, free towns if ever any were, independent cities! And yet, who knows if some tyrant . . .’

  Captain Nemo interrupted his sentence with a fierce gesture. Then, addressing me directly, as if to chase away some unhappy thought:

  ‘Dr Aronnax,’ he asked, ‘do you know what the depth of the ocean is?’

  ‘All I know, captain, is what the main soundings have taught us.’

  ‘Could you please cite them, so that I may corroborate them as necessary?’

  ‘Here are the few I can remember. If I am not mistaken, the average depth of the North Atlantic has been found to be 8,200 metres, and the Mediterranean, 2,500 metres. The deepest soundings were made in the South Atlantic, near the 35th parallel, and gave 12,000, 14,091, and 15,149 metres.* In sum, it has been estimated that if all the water in the oceans were to be levelled off, its average depth would be about seven kilometres.’

  ‘Very well, Dr Aronnax,’ replied Captain Nemo. ‘I hope we can show you better than that. As for the average depth of this part of the Pacific, I can tell you that it is only 4,000 metres.’

  Upon which, Captain Nemo headed for the hatch and disappeared down the ladder. I followed him into the salon. The propeller promptly started revolving, and the log soon indicated a speed of 20 knots.

  In the days and weeks that followed, Captain Nemo was very sparing with his visits. I saw him only at rare intervals. His first officer took regular bearings, which I found marked on the map, enabling me to follow the Nautilus’s exact course.

  Conseil and Land spent long hours with me. Conseil had related the wonders of our excursion to his friend, and the Canadian regretted not coming. But I hoped there would be further opportunities to visit the oceanic forests later.

  Almost every day, the panels in the salon were opened for a few hours. Our eyes never grew tired of penetrating the mysteries of the underwater world.

  The overall direction of the Nautilus was south-easterly, and it stayed at a depth of 100 to 150 metres. One day, however, through some mysterious caprice, it used its inclined planes to dive at an angle and reached water 2,000 metres down. The thermometer indicated a temperature of 4.25° C, which, at this depth, seems common to all latitudes.

  At 3 a.m. on 26 November, the Nautilus cut the tropic of Cancer at longitude 172°. On the 27th it passed within sight of the archipelago of Hawaii, where Captain Cook* met his fate on 14 February 1779. We had then covered 4,860 leagues from our starting-point. When I went out that morning, I sighted Hawaii two miles to leeward, the biggest of the seven islands forming the group. I could clearly make out the fields on its seaboard, the various mountain chains running parallel to the coast, and the volcanoes, dominated by Mauna Kea rising 5,000 metres above sea level.* Amongst other specimens of these areas, the nets brought in pavonated fans, which are compacted polyps of a gracious form peculiar to this part of the ocean.

  The Nautilus continued on its south-easterly course. It crossed the equator at longitude 142° on 1 December, and on the 4th, after a swift and uneventful navigation, we sighted the Marquesas. Three miles away, at 8° 57´ S, 139° 32´ W, I perceived Cape Martin on Nuku Hiva, the main island in this group belonging to France. But I saw only the forested mountains standing up above the skyline, for Captain Nemo did not like approaching the land. There the nets brought in fine specimens: dolphin fish with pale blue fins and golden tails, whose flesh is unequalled anywhere, Hologymnosi which have virtually no scales but an exquisite taste, Ostorhinchi with their bony jaws, and yellowish frigate mackerel which are just as good as bonito — all fish worthy of being classified in the ship’s galley.

  Having quit these charming islands protected by the French flag, the Nautilus covered approximately 2,000 miles from 4 to 11 December. This navigation was noteworthy for an encounter with an enormous troop of calamar, strange molluscs closely related to the cuttlefish. French fishermen classify them as squid; and they belong to the class of cephalopods and family of dibranchiates, which also includes the cuttlefish and the argonaut. These calamar were studied particularly keenly by the naturalists of classical times, and they provided numerous metaphors for the orators of the Agora, plus an excellent dish for the tables of the rich, if we are to believe Athenaeus, a Greek doctor who lived before Galen.*

  It was on the night of 9–10 December that the Nautilus encountered this army of molluscs of highly nocturnal habits. There were millions of them. They were migrating from the temperate to the warmer zones, following the paths of the herrings and sardines. Through the thick crystal windows, we watched them swimming backwards extremely fast by means of propulsion tubes as they chased the fish and molluscs: eating the little ones, being eaten by the big ones, and waving in indescribable confusion the ten legs that nature has implanted on their heads, like a head-dress of inflatable snakes. Despite its speed, the Nautilus sailed through this massive army of creatures for several hours, and its nets brought in countless numbers, amongst which I recognized the nine species d’Orbigny* has classified as inhabiting the Pacific Ocean.

  It can be seen that the ocean provided its most wondrous sights during this crossing, incessantly and beyond all reckoning. It varied them indefinitely. The sea changed its backdrop and its scenery for our pleasure, and we were called on to contemplate the Creator’s works in the midst of the liquid element, but also to penetrate the ocean’s most terrible mysteries.

  On 11 December I was reading in the salon. Ned Land and Conseil were observing the luminous waters through the half-open panels. The Nautilus was motionless. With tanks full, it lay at a depth of 1,000 metres, a sparsely inhabited region of the oceans, where only larger fish put in an occasional appearance.

  The book I was reading was a charming one by Jean Macé* called Les Serviteurs de l’estomac, and I was savouring its sagacious lessons, when Conseil interjected.

  ‘Would monsieur please come here for a moment?’ he said in an unusual tone.

  ‘What is it, Conseil?’

  ‘Something monsieur should see.’

  I got up, went to lean against the glass, and gazed.

  In the bright electric light, an enormous blackish object was suspended motionless in the midst of the waters. I observed it attentively, trying to identify the gigantic cetacean. But a sudden thought crossed my mind.

  ‘A ship!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Ned Land, ‘a crippled ship that went straight down!’

  He was quite right. It was a ship with cut shrouds still hanging from their plates. Its hull seemed to be in good condition, and it could not have been wrecked for more than a few hours. The stumps of three masts, chopped two feet above the deck, showed that the waterlogged ship must have sacrificed its masts. But it must have keeled sideways and filled up with water: it was still listing to port. A sad sight, this carcass lost beneath the waves; but sadder still, the sight of the deck where a few bodies still lay, made fast with ropes. I counted four — all men, with one of them still standing at the helm — then a woman half emerging through the deadlight in the poop, holding a child with both arms. She was young. I was able to make out her features, brilliantly
illuminated by the Nautilus’s lights and not yet decomposed by the water. In a supreme effort, she had raised the child above her head, a poor little creature whose arms still clasped the neck of its mother! The forms of the four sailors were frightening, twisted as they were in convulsive movements, making a final attempt to tear themselves from the ropes tying them to the ship. Only the helmsman, calmer, face clear and serious, greying hair stuck to forehead, hand tightly seizing the wheel, appeared to be still steering the wrecked three-master through the ocean depths.*

  What a scene! We stood silent, our hearts pounding, at the sight of this shipwreck captured in mid-act, photographed as it were at its ultimate moment! And already I could see huge sharks advancing, their eyes ablaze, drawn by the lure of human flesh!

  The Nautilus had been manoeuvring around the submerged ship. For a brief moment I could read the board on its stern:

  ‘The Florida, Sunderland.’*

  19

  Vanikoro

  This terrible sight inaugurated a series of maritime disasters that the Nautilus was to encounter on its route. From the time it started moving through more-frequented seas, we often sighted sunken hulls, completely rotten and hanging in the water, or, deeper, cannons, cannonballs, anchors, chains, and a thousand other iron objects being devoured by rust.

  However, always borne on by the Nautilus, where we effectively lived in seclusion, we sighted the Tuamotu Archipelago on 11 December.* This was Bougainville’s* former Dangerous Archipelago, extending across 500 leagues from east-south-east to west-north-west, between 13° 30´ and 23° 50´ S, and 125° 30´ and 151° 30´ W, from Ducie Island to Matahiva. The archipelago covers an area of 370 square leagues, and includes about sixty island groups, amongst which can be noted the Gambier Islands, on which France has imposed its protectorate. These islands are coral-producing. A slow but steady ascent, due to the work of the polyps, will one day join them all up. The new island will later attach itself to the neighbouring archipelagos, and a fifth continent will extend from New Zealand and New Caledonia all the way to the Marquesas.