CHAPTER 18

Four Thousand Leagues Under the Pacific

BY THE NEXT MORNING, November 18, I was fully recovered from my

exhaustion of the day before, and I climbed onto the platform just as

the Nautilus’s 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 in sight.”

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 color of the prism except its blue rays, reflected the

latter in every direction and sported a wonderful indigo tint. The

undulating waves regularly took on the appearance of watered silk with

wide stripes.

I was marveling 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 elbows on the beacon housing, his eyes straying over the

surface of the ocean.

Meanwhile some twenty of the Nautilus’s sailors—all energetic,

well-built fellows—climbed onto the platform. They had 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

recognized some Irishmen, some Frenchmen, 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 whose 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 lower meshes. Trailing in

this way from these iron glove makers, the resulting 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 the epithet “clowns,” black Commerson 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 crosswise bands, greenish codfish,

several varieties of goby, etc.; finally, some fish of larger

proportions: a one-meter jack with a prominent head, several fine

bonito from the genus Scomber decked out in the colors blue and

silver, and three magnificent tuna whose high speeds couldn’t save

them from our trawl.

I estimate that this cast of the net brought in more than 1,000 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 thread. So we were never lacking in

provisions of the highest quality, which the Nautilus’s speed and the

allure 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, when 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 this

eccentric individual was simply continuing a conversation we’d already

started!

“See!” he went on. “It’s waking up under the sun’s caresses! It’s

going to relive its daily existence! What a fascinating field of study

lies in watching the play of its organism. It owns a pulse and

arteries, it has spasms, and I side with the scholarly Commander

Maury, who discovered that it has a 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 meditating out loud.

“Yes,” he said, “the ocean owns a genuine circulation, and to start it

going, the Creator of All Things has only to increase its heat, salt,

and microscopic animal life. In essence, heat creates the different

densities that lead to currents and countercurrents. 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 make 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 -2 degrees centigrade, then cool off, grow lighter, and

rise again. At the poles you’ll see the consequences of this

phenomenon, and through this law of farseeing 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 thoroughly and unceasingly. Then, going on:

“Salts,” he said, “fill the sea in considerable quantities, professor,

and if you removed all its dissolved saline 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 ten meters 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 the temperate zones. Salts play a

leading role, the role of stabilizer 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 of 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 madrepores,

they’re the true builders of limestone continents! And so, after

they’ve finished depriving our water drop of its mineral nutrients,

the droplet gets lighter, rises to the surface, there absorbs more

salts 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 abundant, 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 whether some tyrant . . .”

Captain Nemo finished his sentence with a vehement gesture. Then,

addressing me directly, as if to drive away an ugly thought:

“Professor Aronnax,” he asked me, “do you know the depth of the ocean

floor?”

“At least, captain, I know what the major soundings tell 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 stick in my memory. If I’m

not mistaken, an average depth of 8,200 meters was found in the north

Atlantic, and 2,500 meters in the Mediterranean. The most remarkable

soundings were taken in the south Atlantic near the 35th parallel, and

they gave 12,000 meters, 14,091 meters, and 15,149 meters. All in all,

it’s estimated that if the sea bottom were made level, its average

depth would be about seven kilometers.”

“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 meters.”

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 our speed as twenty

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 the Nautilus’s course.

Conseil and Land spent the long hours with me. Conseil had 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 forests 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’s general heading was southeast, and it stayed at a depth

between 100 and 150 meters. However, from lord-knows-what whim, one

day it did a diagonal dive by means of its slanting fins, reaching

strata located 2,000 meters underwater. The thermometer indicated a

temperature of 4.25 degrees centigrade, which at this depth seemed to

be a temperature common to all latitudes.

On November 26, at three o’clock in the morning, the Nautilus cleared

the Tropic of Cancer at longitude 172 degrees. On the 27th it passed

in sight of the Hawaiian 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 Island of Hawaii two miles to leeward, the largest of the

seven islands making up this group. I could clearly distinguish the

tilled soil on its outskirts, the various mountain chains running

parallel with its coastline, and its volcanoes, crowned by Mauna Kea,

whose elevation is 5,000 meters above sea level. Among other specimens

from these waterways, our nets brought up some peacock-tailed

flabellarian coral, polyps flattened into stylish shapes and unique to

this part of the ocean.

The Nautilus kept to its southeasterly heading. On December 1 it cut

the equator at longitude 142 degrees, and on the 4th of the same

month, after a quick crossing marked by no incident, we raised the

Marquesas 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 wooded mountains on the horizon, because

Captain Nemo hated to hug shore. There our nets brought up some fine

fish samples: dolphinfish with azure fins, gold tails, and flesh

that’s unrivaled in the entire world, wrasse from the genus

Hologymnosus that were nearly denuded of scales but exquisite in

flavor, knifejaws with bony beaks, yellowish albacore that were as

tasty as bonito, 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 immense school

of squid, unusual mollusks that are near neighbors of the

cuttlefish. French fishermen give them the name “cuckoldfish,” and

they belong to the class Cephalopoda, family Dibranchiata, consisting

of themselves together with cuttlefish and argonauts. The naturalists

of antiquity made a special study of them, and these animals furnished

many ribald figures of speech for soapbox orators in the Greek

marketplace, as well as excellent dishes for the tables of rich

citizens, if we’re to believe Athenaeus, a Greek physician predating

Galen.

It was during the night of December 9-10 that the Nautilus encountered

this army of distinctly nocturnal mollusks. They numbered in the

millions. They were migrating from the temperate zones toward zones

still warmer, following the itineraries of herring and sardines. We

stared at them through our 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 indescribable confusion the ten 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 nets brought up an

incalculable number, among which I recognized all nine species that

Professor Orbigny has classified as native to the Pacific Ocean.

During this crossing, the sea continually lavished us with the most

marvelous sights. Its variety 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 11, I was busy reading in the main

lounge. Ned Land and Conseil were observing the luminous waters

through the gaping panels. The Nautilus was motionless. Its ballast

tanks full, it was sitting at a depth of 1,000 meters in a

comparatively unpopulated region of the ocean where only larger fish

put in occasional appearances.

Just then I was studying a delightful book by Jean Macé, The Servants

of the Stomach, and savoring its ingenious teachings, when Conseil

interrupted my reading.

“Would master kindly come here for an instant?” he said to me in an

odd voice.

“What is it, Conseil?”

“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 observed it

carefully, trying to find out the nature of this gigantic

cetacean. Then a sudden thought crossed my mind.

“A ship!” I exclaimed.

“Yes,” the Canadian replied, “a disabled craft that’s sinking straight

down!”

Ned Land was not mistaken. We were in the presence of a ship whose

severed shrouds still hung from their clasps. Its hull looked in good

condition, and it must have gone under only a few hours before. The

stumps of three masts, chopped off two feet above the deck, indicated

a flooding ship that had been forced to sacrifice its masting. But it

had heeled sideways, filling completely, and it was listing to port

even yet. A sorry sight, this carcass lost under the waves, but

sorrier still was the sight 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, halfway out of a skylight on the afterdeck, holding a child in

her arms. This woman was young. Under the brilliant lighting of the

Nautilus’s rays, I could make out her features, which the water hadn’t

yet decomposed. With a supreme effort, she had lifted her child above

her head, and the poor little creature’s arms were still twined around

its mother’s neck! The postures 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 their 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 through 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 sinking

ship, and for an instant I could read the board on its stern:

The Florida Sunderland, England