by Jules Verne
‘So what is this volcanic mountain then?’
‘It forms one of the many small islands dotting the sea. A mere obstacle for other ships, but for us an enormous cavern. Chance led me to discover it, and so served me well.’*
‘But couldn’t someone enter the mouth of the crater?’
‘Not any more than I could climb up there. For about 100 feet the internal slopes of this mountain are scalable but above that the walls overhang, and are no longer climbable.’
‘I can see, captain, that nature serves you everywhere and on all occasions. You are safe and sound on this lake, and nobody but you can visit its waters. But what is the point of this refuge? The Nautilus does not need a port.’
‘No, doctor, but it does need electricity to move, batteries to produce its electricity, sodium to feed its batteries, coal to make its sodium, and mines to furnish its coal. And just here, the sea covers entire forests swallowed up in earlier geological times: now mineralized and turned into coal, this seam I own is inexhaustible.’
‘So your men work as miners, captain?’
‘Precisely. The mine extends under the waves like those of Newcastle.* Dressed in their diving suits, pick and pickaxe in hand, my men descend here to extract the coal, with the result that I do not require any from the mines on land. When I burn it to manufacture sodium, the smoke escaping from the crater gives the mountain the appearance of an active volcano.’
‘And will we see your companions at work?’
‘No, at least not this time, I am in a hurry to continue our tour of the underwater world. I am merely going to draw from the sodium reserves I have already accumulated here. When we have loaded them on board, which will take just a day, we will continue our voyage. So if you wish to explore this cavern and go round the lagoon, please make use of this time, Dr Aronnax.’
I thanked the captain, and went in search of my two companions who had not yet left their cabin. I invited them to follow me without telling them where we were.
They went up on to the platform. Conseil, who was astonished at nothing, considered it natural to wake up under a mountain after going to sleep under the waves. But Ned Land’s only idea was to search and see if the cavern had some way out.
After finishing breakfast at about ten o’clock, we climbed down to the shore.
‘Here we are on dry land once more,’ said Conseil.
‘I do not call this “dry land”,’ replied the Canadian. ‘And in any case, we are not on but under it.’
Between the foot of the mountain wall and the water of the lake stretched a sandy shore measuring 500 feet at its widest point. Following this shore, it was perfectly possible to go round the lake. But the base of the high wall itself was made up of fractured ground, on which lay volcanic blocks and enormous pumice stones in picturesque disorder. All these disaggregated masses, which subterranean fires had left with a polished glaze, scintillated as the electricity from the searchlight flowed over them. The mica dust on the shore, kicked up by our feet, flew into the air in sparkling clouds.
The ground rose noticeably as it left the sand flats, and we soon arrived at long winding slopes, acting for us as mountain paths on which to climb little by little. But we needed to walk carefully over the conglomerates that no cement held together, as our feet slipped on the vitreous trachytes made of feldspar and quartz crystals.
The volcanic origin of this enormous pit was visible everywhere. I pointed it out to my companions.
‘Can you imagine what this funnel must have been like when it was filling with boiling lava, when the level of the incandescent liquid reached the mouth of the mountain, like cast iron up the walls of a blast furnace?’
‘I can imagine it perfectly,’ replied Conseil. ‘But will monsieur tell me why the great foundryman interrupted his work, and how it comes about that the oven has been replaced by the quiet waters of a lake?’
‘Very probably because of the same convulsion that produced the underwater passage that let the Nautilus through. The waves of the Atlantic must have rushed inside the mountain. There was presumably a terrifying battle between the two elements, which ended to Neptune’s advantage. But many centuries have passed since then, and the submerged volcano has now become a peaceful grotto.’
‘Very well,’ said Ned Land, ‘I accept that explanation. But from our point of view, I’m sorry that the passage Dr Aronnax is talking about wasn’t produced above sea level.’
‘But, Ned, my friend,’ said Conseil, ‘if the passage hadn’t been underwater, the Nautilus wouldn’t have been able to come through!’
‘And I would add, Master Land, that the water wouldn’t have rushed under the mountain and the volcano would have remained a volcano. So your regrets are perhaps misplaced.’
Our climb continued. The incline grew steeper and steeper and narrower and narrower. Sometimes it was interrupted by crevasses which we had to cross. Overhangs needed to be worked around. We slid on our knees, we crept on our bellies. But with Conseil’s skill and the Canadian’s strength, we overcame all obstacles.
About 100 feet up the terrain changed, but did not become any easier going. The conglomerates and trachytes gave way to black basalt, stretching out in strata full of blistered bulges; the conglomerates formed regular prisms lined up like a row of columns supporting the springs of an enormous vault, thus constituting an admirable example of natural architecture. Between the basalt sections snaked long torrents of solidified lava encrusted with bituminous spokes; at places wide carpets of sulphur stretched out. A more powerful light came in through the high crater, and washed a vague light over all these volcanic ejecta, entombed for ever in the heart of an extinct mountain.
But our climb was interrupted by insurmountable obstacles at a height of approximately 250 feet. The interior arch moulding changed into an overhang and our climb had to follow a circular route. At this height, the vegetable kingdom began to struggle for dominance with the mineral. A few shrubs and even trees emerged from the cracks in the rock face. I recognized some euphorbia oozing their caustic sap. Heliotropes were not living up to their name since the sunlight never reached them, and sadly displayed their bunches of flowers with half-faded colours and perfumes. Here and there, a few chrysanthemums grew timidly at the feet of aloes with long, sad, ill leaves. But between the lava flows I spotted some small violets, still slightly fragranced, and I must admit I breathed in their scent with great delight. Perfume is the soul of the flower, but the flowers of the sea, the splendid hydrophytes, have no souls!
We had arrived at the foot of a clump of robust dragon trees, pushing the rocks aside with their muscular roots, when Ned suddenly exclaimed:
‘Ah, monsieur, a hive!’
‘A hive!’ I repeated, making a gesture of incredulity.
‘Yes, a hive,’ repeated the Canadian, ‘with bees buzzing around.’
I went up to it and was forced to admit that it was true. Around a hole in the trunk of a dragon tree were several thousand of those ingenious insects, so common throughout the Canary Islands, where their products are so much sought after.
Quite naturally, the Canadian wished to make a provision of honey, and it would have been ill grace for me to oppose him. A quantity of dry leaves mixed with sulphur were lit using the spark from Ned’s tinder-box lighter, and he began to smoke out the bees. The buzzing ceased little by little, before the eviscerated hive gave up several pounds of fragrant honey. Land filled his haversack with it.
‘When I mix this honey with the breadfruit dough,’ he said, ‘I’ll be able to cook you a delicious cake.’
‘Parbleu!’ said Conseil. ‘Gingerbread?’
‘A good idea,’ I said. ‘But let’s continue our interesting walk.’
At bends in our path, the whole lake appeared before us. The searchlight lit up every part of its tranquil surface, not marred by a single ripple. The Nautilus remained perfectly still. The crewmen were moving briskly about the platform and the shore — black shadows neatly silhou
etted in the luminous atmosphere.
We had reached the highest part of the first level of rocks holding up the vault. I realized that the bees were not the only representatives of the animal kingdom in the volcano. Birds of prey were gliding and turning here and there in the shadows, all descending from their nests perched on points of rock. There were sparrowhawks with white stomachs and screeching kestrels. Crashing down the slopes came fine fat bustards, carried down on their swift long legs. I will let the reader imagine if the Canadian’s appetite was whetted by the sight of this savoury game, and whether he regretted not having a gun. He tried replacing shot with stones and, after several unsuccessful attempts, managed to wound one of the magnificent birds. To say that he risked his life twenty times trying to catch it is the simple truth, but he managed well enough, for the bustard eventually joined the honeycomb in his bag.
We had to climb down towards the shore again, for the crest was becoming impassable. Above us, the gaping crater appeared like the wide opening of a well. From where we were the sky could be made out quite clearly; I could see dishevelled clouds running before the west wind, leaving their misty shreds behind on the summit of the mountain. They must have been at a low altitude, for the volcano did not rise more than 800 feet above sea level.
Half an hour after the Canadian’s final exploit, we got back to the enclosed shore. Here the flora was represented by broad carpets of samphire, a small umbelliferous plant very good for preserving and making jam, and which is also called saxifrage, glasswort, and sea fennel. Conseil gathered a few bunches. As for the fauna, this consisted of thousands of crustaceans of all sorts: lobsters, spider-crabs, palaemons, mysis, arachnids, Galathea, and a prodigious number of shells, including cowries, murexes, and limpets.
A magnificent cavern opened out at this point. My companions and I took pleasure in stretching ourselves out on its fine sand. Fire had polished its glazed and sparkling walls, all sprinkled with dust from the mica. Ned Land tested the walls, trying to find out how thick they were. I could not stop myself smiling. The conversation then turned to his perpetual plans for escape, and I thought I could give him some hope, without committing myself too much: namely that Captain Nemo had only come down south to renew his supply of sodium. I therefore hoped he would now head for the coasts of Europe or America, and thus allow the Canadian to try again with greater success this time.
We had been stretched out in this charming cavern for about an hour. The conversation, lively at the beginning, was now languishing. a certain drowsiness took hold of us. As I could see no reason to resist sleep, I let myself fall into a deep slumber. I dreamed — one does not choose one’s dreams — that my life was reduced to the vegetable life of a simple mollusc. The cavern seemed to form the double valve of my shell . . .
All of a sudden, I was woken by Conseil’s voice.
‘Danger! Look out!’ shouted the good fellow.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, half rising.
‘There’s water coming in!’
I got up. The sea was rushing into our shelter like a river, and, since we were decidedly not molluscs, we needed to move.
A few moments later, we were in safety above the cavern.
‘So what’s happening?’ asked Conseil. ‘Some new phenomenon?’
‘No, my friends,’ I replied, ‘it’s the tide, only the tide which almost caught us out, just like Walter Scott’s hero!* The ocean is rising outside and through a completely natural law of equilibrium, the level of the lake is also rising. We’ve got out of it with half a bath. Let’s go and change in the Nautilus.’
Three-quarters of an hour later, we had finished our circular tour and returned on board. The crew were finishing loading the supply of sodium, and the Nautilus could have left immediately.
However, Captain Nemo did not issue any instructions. Did he want to wait for night and leave his submarine passage under the cover of secrecy? Possibly.
Whatever the reason, the following day the Nautilus had left its home port and was sailing a few metres below the waves of the Atlantic, on the high seas far from any land.
11
The Sargasso Sea
The direction of the Nautilus had not changed, so any hope of returning to European waters had to be put aside for the moment. Captain Nemo maintained a southerly course. Where was he taking us? I dared not think.
That day, the Nautilus crossed a remarkable region of the Atlantic Ocean. Everyone is aware of the existence of that great current of warm water known as the Gulf Stream. After leaving the Florida Strait, it heads towards Spitsbergen. But before reaching the Gulf of Mexico at about 44° N, the current divides into two. The larger branch heads for the coasts of Ireland and Norway, whilst the second heads south starting from a point opposite the Azores; then, striking the African coast and describing an extended oval, it heads back towards the West Indies once more.
Now the warm water of this second branch — which is more like a necklace than a branch — surrounds that portion of the ocean which is cold, peaceful, and motionless and is called the Sargasso Sea.* A true lake in the middle of the Atlantic, which the waters of the great current take no less than three years to go round.
The Sargasso Sea, to be precise, covers the whole submerged area of Atlantis. Some authors have even claimed that the numerous grasses with which it is strewn are torn from the plains of the submerged continent. It is more probable, however, that the grasses, seaweeds, and wracks are taken from the shores of Europe and America and carried into this area by the Gulf Stream. This was one of the reasons that led Columbus to suppose a new world existed. When the ships of the bold searcher arrived in the Sargasso Sea, they had problems sailing through the grasses which stopped their progress, to the great alarm of his crews, and they wasted three long weeks crossing them.
Such was the region that the Nautilus was now visiting. It was nothing less than a prairie, a tightly knit carpet of seaweeds, fucus natans, and bladder-wracks, so thick and compact that the prow of a vessel could barely tear through it. Captain Nemo did not wish to engage his screw in this grassy mass, and so kept a few metres below the surface of the waves.
The name Sargasso comes from the Spanish sargazo* meaning ‘sea-wrack’. This sea-wrack, floating varec, or gulfweed, is the main constituent of the immense bed. According to the scientist Maury, author of The Physical Geography of the Globe,* such hydrophytes gather in this peaceful basin of the Atlantic:
The explanation that can be given for this, he says, seems to result from an experiment everyone is familiar with. ‘If bits of cork or chaff, or any floating substance, be put into a basin, and a circular motion be given to the water, all the light substances will be found crowding together near the centre of the pool, where there is the least motion. Just such a basin is the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Stream, and the Sargasso Sea is the centre of the whirl.’
I share Maury’s opinion, and have been able to study the phenomenon in that special environment which ships rarely enter. Above us floated bodies of every origin, piled up amongst the brownish grasses: tree-trunks torn from the Andes or the Rocky Mountains and carried down by the Amazon or the Mississippi, and numerous wrecks, either the remains of keels or hulls or stove-in sections so weighed down by shells and barnacles that they could no longer float on the surface. There is another idea of Maury’s which will be proved one day: that this matter, accumulated for centuries, will mineralize in the action of the water and come to form inexhaustible coalmines. A precious reserve that farsighted nature is laying down for the time when man has exhausted the mines on dry land.
In the midst of this inextricable fabric of grasses and fucus, I noticed charming star-shaped alcyonarians in pink colours, sea anemones that let their long tresses of tentacles drag in the current, green, red, and blue jellyfish, and especially the great rhizostomes described by Cuvier, with bluish umbrellas edged with violet frills.
The whole of 22 February was spent in the Sargasso Sea, where fish
find abundant food among the marine plants and crustaceans. The next day, the ocean’s appearance was back to normal.
From that moment on, for the eighteen days from 23 February to 12 March, the Nautilus kept to the North Atlantic, carrying us on at a constant speed of 100 leagues every twenty-four hours. Captain Nemo evidently wished to finish his submarine programme, and there was no doubt in my mind that he was planning to head back to the South Seas of the Pacific after rounding Cape Horn.
Ned had therefore been right to worry. In these wide seas, bereft of islands, we could not try to leave the vessel. Nor was there any way of opposing Captain Nemo’s wishes. The only choice was to submit; but what we were unable to obtain using brute strength or ruse, I liked to think we could obtain by means of persuasion. Once the voyage was over, might Captain Nemo not agree to give us back our freedom if we swore never to reveal his existence? An oath of honour which we would have kept. But we needed to discuss this delicate question with the captain as soon as possible. Would I receive a warm reception if I asked for this freedom? Had he not declared, at the beginning and in formal fashion, that the secret surrounding his life demanded that we be kept imprisoned on board the Nautilus for ever? Would my silence over the last four months not appear to be tacit acceptance of the situation? Wouldn’t raising the subject again cause suspicion which could hinder our plans if some favourable circumstance arose later? I weighed up all these questions, turned them over in my mind, and raised them with Conseil, but he remained just as undecided as I. The upshot was that, although not easily discouraged, I could see the chances of ever meeting my fellows again diminishing with each day, especially now that Captain Nemo was heading boldly towards the South Atlantic!
During the eighteen days I mentioned above, no particular incident marked our voyage. I saw little of the captain. He was working. In the library I often found books he had left open, mainly books on natural history. My work on the submarine depths had been read by him, and the margin was covered with notes, sometimes contradicting my theories and systems. But the captain satisfied himself with improving my work in this way, and it was rare for him to discuss it directly with me. Sometimes I heard the melancholy sounds of his organ, which he played with great expression, but only at night, in the midst of the most secret darkness, while the Nautilus was sleeping in the ocean wilderness.
