CHAPTER 17

An Underwater Forest

WE HAD FINALLY arrived on the outskirts of this forest, surely one of

the finest in Captain Nemo’s immense domains. He regarded it as his

own and had laid the same claim to it that, in the first days of the

world, the first men had to their forests on land. Besides, who else

could dispute his ownership of this underwater property? What other,

bolder pioneer would come, ax in hand, to clear away its dark

underbrush?

This forest was made up of big treelike plants, and when we entered

beneath their huge arches, my eyes were instantly struck by the unique

arrangement of their branches—an arrangement that I had never before

encountered.

None of the weeds carpeting the seafloor, none of the branches

bristling from the shrubbery, crept, or leaned, or stretched on a

horizontal plane. They all rose right up toward the surface of the

ocean. Every filament or ribbon, no matter how thin, stood ramrod

straight. Fucus plants and creepers were growing in stiff

perpendicular lines, governed by the density of the element that

generated them. After I parted them with my hands, these otherwise

motionless plants would shoot right back to their original

positions. It was the regime of verticality.

I soon grew accustomed to this bizarre arrangement, likewise to the

comparative darkness surrounding us. The seafloor in this forest was

strewn with sharp chunks of stone that were hard to avoid. Here the

range of underwater flora seemed pretty comprehensive to me, as well

as more abundant than it might have been in the arctic or tropical

zones, where such exhibits are less common. But for a few minutes I

kept accidentally confusing the two kingdoms, mistaking zoophytes for

water plants, animals for vegetables. And who hasn’t made the same

blunder? Flora and fauna are so closely associated in the underwater

world!

I observed that all these exhibits from the vegetable kingdom were

attached to the seafloor by only the most makeshift methods. They had

no roots and didn’t care which solid objects secured them, sand,

shells, husks, or pebbles; they didn’t ask their hosts for sustenance,

just a point of purchase. These plants are entirely self-propagating,

and the principle of their existence lies in the water that sustains

and nourishes them. In place of leaves, most of them sprouted blades

of unpredictable shape, which were confined to a narrow gamut of

colors consisting only of pink, crimson, green, olive, tan, and

brown. There I saw again, but not yet pressed and dried like the

Nautilus’s specimens, some peacock’s tails spread open like fans to

stir up a cooling breeze, scarlet rosetangle, sea tangle stretching

out their young and edible shoots, twisting strings of kelp from the

genus Nereocystis that bloomed to a height of fifteen meters, bouquets

of mermaid’s cups whose stems grew wider at the top, and a number of

other open-sea plants, all without flowers. “It’s an odd anomaly in

this bizarre element!” as one witty naturalist puts it. “The animal

kingdom blossoms, and the vegetable kingdom doesn’t!”

These various types of shrubbery were as big as trees in the temperate

zones; in the damp shade between them, there were clustered actual

bushes of moving flowers, hedges of zoophytes in which there grew

stony coral striped with twisting furrows, yellowish sea anemone from

the genus Caryophylia with translucent tentacles, plus anemone with

grassy tufts from the genus Zoantharia; and to complete the illusion,

minnows flitted from branch to branch like a swarm of hummingbirds,

while there rose underfoot, like a covey of snipe, yellow fish from

the genus Lepisocanthus with bristling jaws and sharp scales, flying

gurnards, and pinecone fish.

Near one o’clock, Captain Nemo gave the signal to halt. Speaking for

myself, I was glad to oblige, and we stretched out beneath an arbor of

winged kelp, whose long thin tendrils stood up like arrows.

This short break was a delight. It lacked only the charm of

conversation. But it was impossible to speak, impossible to reply. I

simply nudged my big copper headpiece against Conseil’s headpiece. I

saw a happy gleam in the gallant lad’s eyes, and to communicate his

pleasure, he jiggled around inside his carapace in the world’s

silliest way.

After four hours of strolling, I was quite astonished not to feel any

intense hunger. What kept my stomach in such a good mood I’m unable to

say. But, in exchange, I experienced that irresistible desire for

sleep that comes over every diver. Accordingly, my eyes soon closed

behind their heavy glass windows and I fell into an uncontrollable

doze, which until then I had been able to fight off only through the

movements of our walking. Captain Nemo and his muscular companion were

already stretched out in this clear crystal, setting us a fine naptime

example.

How long I was sunk in this torpor I cannot estimate; but when I

awoke, it seemed as if the sun were settling toward the

horizon. Captain Nemo was already up, and I had started to stretch my

limbs, when an unexpected apparition brought me sharply to my feet.

A few paces away, a monstrous, meter-high sea spider was staring at me

with beady eyes, poised to spring at me. Although my diving suit was

heavy enough to protect me from this animal’s bites, I couldn’t keep

back a shudder of horror. Just then Conseil woke up, together with the

Nautilus’s sailor. Captain Nemo alerted his companion to this hideous

crustacean, which a swing of the rifle butt quickly brought down, and

I watched the monster’s horrible legs writhing in dreadful

convulsions.

This encounter reminded me that other, more daunting animals must be

lurking in these dark reaches, and my diving suit might not be

adequate protection against their attacks. Such thoughts hadn’t

previously crossed my mind, and I was determined to keep on my

guard. Meanwhile I had assumed this rest period would be the turning

point in our stroll, but I was mistaken; and instead of heading back

to the Nautilus, Captain Nemo continued his daring excursion.

The seafloor kept sinking, and its significantly steeper slope took us

to greater depths. It must have been nearly three o’clock when we

reached a narrow valley gouged between high, vertical walls and

located 150 meters down. Thanks to the perfection of our equipment, we

had thus gone ninety meters below the limit that nature had, until

then, set on man’s underwater excursions.

I say 150 meters, although I had no instruments for estimating this

distance. But I knew that the sun’s rays, even in the clearest seas,

could reach no deeper. So at precisely this point the darkness became

profound. Not a single object was visible past ten

paces. Consequently, I had begun to grope my way when suddenly I saw

the glow of an intense white light. Captain Nemo had just activated

his electric device. His companion did likewise. Conseil and I

followed suit. By turning a switch, I established contact between the

induction coil and the glass spiral, and the sea, lit up by our four

lanterns, was illuminated for a radius of twenty-five meters.

Captain Nemo continued to plummet into the dark depths of this forest,

whose shrubbery grew ever more sparse. I observed that vegetable life

was disappearing more quickly than animal life. The open-sea plants

had already left behind the increasingly arid seafloor, where a

prodigious number of animals were still swarming: zoophytes,

articulates, mollusks, and fish.

While we were walking, I thought the lights of our Ruhmkorff devices

would automatically attract some inhabitants of these dark strata. But

if they did approach us, at least they kept at a distance regrettable

from the hunter’s standpoint. Several times I saw Captain Nemo stop

and take aim with his rifle; then, after sighting down its barrel for

a few seconds, he would straighten up and resume his walk.

Finally, at around four o’clock, this marvelous excursion came to an

end. A wall of superb rocks stood before us, imposing in its sheer

mass: a pile of gigantic stone blocks, an enormous granite cliffside

pitted with dark caves but not offering a single gradient we could

climb up. This was the underpinning of Crespo Island. This was land.

The captain stopped suddenly. A gesture from him brought us to a halt,

and however much I wanted to clear this wall, I had to stop. Here

ended the domains of Captain Nemo. He had no desire to pass beyond

them. Farther on lay a part of the globe he would no longer tread

underfoot.

Our return journey began. Captain Nemo resumed the lead in our little

band, always heading forward without hesitation. I noted that we

didn’t follow the same path in returning to the Nautilus. This new

route, very steep and hence very arduous, quickly took us close to the

surface of the sea. But this return to the upper strata wasn’t so

sudden that decompression took place too quickly, which could have led

to serious organic disorders and given us those internal injuries so

fatal to divers. With great promptness, the light reappeared and grew

stronger; and the refraction of the sun, already low on the horizon,

again ringed the edges of various objects with the entire color

spectrum.

At a depth of ten meters, we walked amid a swarm of small fish from

every species, more numerous than birds in the air, more agile too;

but no aquatic game worthy of a gunshot had yet been offered to our

eyes.

Just then I saw the captain’s weapon spring to his shoulder and track

a moving object through the bushes. A shot went off, I heard a faint

hissing, and an animal dropped a few paces away, literally struck by

lightning.

It was a magnificent sea otter from the genus Enhydra, the only

exclusively marine quadruped. One and a half meters long, this otter

had to be worth a good high price. Its coat, chestnut brown above and

silver below, would have made one of those wonderful fur pieces so

much in demand in the Russian and Chinese markets; the fineness and

luster of its pelt guaranteed that it would go for at least 2,000

francs. I was full of wonderment at this unusual mammal, with its

circular head adorned by short ears, its round eyes, its white

whiskers like those on a cat, its webbed and clawed feet, its bushy

tail. Hunted and trapped by fishermen, this valuable carnivore has

become extremely rare, and it takes refuge chiefly in the northernmost

parts of the Pacific, where in all likelihood its species will soon be

facing extinction.

Captain Nemo’s companion picked up the animal, loaded it on his

shoulder, and we took to the trail again.

For an hour plains of sand unrolled before our steps. Often the

seafloor rose to within two meters of the surface of the water. I

could then see our images clearly mirrored on the underside of the

waves, but reflected upside down: above us there appeared an identical

band that duplicated our every movement and gesture; in short, a

perfect likeness of the quartet near which it walked, but with heads

down and feet in the air.

Another unusual effect. Heavy clouds passed above us, forming and

fading swiftly. But after thinking it over, I realized that these

so-called clouds were caused simply by the changing densities of the

long ground swells, and I even spotted the foaming “white caps” that

their breaking crests were proliferating over the surface of the

water. Lastly, I couldn’t help seeing the actual shadows of large

birds passing over our heads, swiftly skimming the surface of the sea.

On this occasion I witnessed one of the finest gunshots ever to thrill

the marrow of a hunter. A large bird with a wide wingspan, quite

clearly visible, approached and hovered over us. When it was just a

few meters above the waves, Captain Nemo’s companion took aim and

fired. The animal dropped, electrocuted, and its descent brought it

within reach of our adroit hunter, who promptly took possession of

it. It was an albatross of the finest species, a wonderful specimen of

these open-sea fowl.

This incident did not interrupt our walk. For two hours we were

sometimes led over plains of sand, sometimes over prairies of seaweed

that were quite arduous to cross. In all honesty, I was dead tired by

the time I spotted a hazy glow half a mile away, cutting through the

darkness of the waters. It was the Nautilus’s beacon. Within twenty

minutes we would be on board, and there I could breathe easy

again—because my tank’s current air supply seemed to be quite low in

oxygen. But I was reckoning without an encounter that slightly delayed

our arrival.

I was lagging behind some twenty paces when I saw Captain Nemo

suddenly come back toward me. With his powerful hands he sent me

buckling to the ground, while his companion did the same to

Conseil. At first I didn’t know what to make of this sudden assault,

but I was reassured to observe the captain lying motionless beside me.

I was stretched out on the seafloor directly beneath some bushes of

algae, when I raised my head and spied two enormous masses hurtling

by, throwing off phosphorescent glimmers.

My blood turned cold in my veins! I saw that we were under threat from

a fearsome pair of sharks. They were blue sharks, dreadful man-eaters

with enormous tails, dull, glassy stares, and phosphorescent matter

oozing from holes around their snouts. They were like monstrous

fireflies that could thoroughly pulverize a man in their iron jaws! I

don’t know if Conseil was busy with their classification, but as for

me, I looked at their silver bellies, their fearsome mouths bristling

with teeth, from a viewpoint less than scientific—more as a victim

than as a professor of natural history.

Luckily these voracious animals have poor eyesight. They went by

without noticing us, grazing us with their brownish fins; and

miraculously, we escaped a danger greater than encountering a tiger

deep in the jungle.

Half an hour later, guided by its electric trail, we reached the

Nautilus. The outside door had been left open, and Captain Nemo closed

it after we reentered the first cell. Then he pressed a button. I

heard pumps operating within the ship, I felt the water lowering

around me, and in a few moments the cell was completely empty. The

inside door opened, and we passed into the wardrobe.

There our diving suits were removed, not without difficulty; and

utterly exhausted, faint from lack of food and rest, I repaired to my

stateroom, full of wonder at this startling excursion on the bottom of

the sea.