CHAPTER 4

The Red Sea

DURING THE DAY of January 29, the island of Ceylon disappeared below

the horizon, and at a speed of twenty miles per hour, the Nautilus

glided into the labyrinthine channels that separate the Maldive and

Laccadive Islands. It likewise hugged Kiltan Island, a shore of

madreporic origin discovered by Vasco da Gama in 1499 and one of

nineteen chief islands in the island group of the Laccadives, located

between latitude 10 degrees and 14 degrees 30′ north, and between

longitude 50 degrees 72′ and 69 degrees east.

By then we had fared 16,220 miles, or 7,500 leagues, from our starting

point in the seas of Japan.

The next day, January 30, when the Nautilus rose to the surface of the

ocean, there was no more land in sight. Setting its course to the

north-northwest, the ship headed toward the Gulf of Oman, carved out

between Arabia and the Indian peninsula and providing access to the

Persian Gulf.

This was obviously a blind alley with no possible outlet. So where was

Captain Nemo taking us? I was unable to say. Which didn’t satisfy the

Canadian, who that day asked me where we were going.

“We’re going, Mr. Ned, where the captain’s fancy takes us.”

“His fancy,” the Canadian replied, “won’t take us very far. The

Persian Gulf has no outlet, and if we enter those waters, it won’t be

long before we return in our tracks.”

“All right, we’ll return, Mr. Land, and after the Persian Gulf, if the

Nautilus wants to visit the Red Sea, the Strait of Bab el Mandeb is

still there to let us in!”

“I don’t have to tell you, sir,” Ned Land replied, “that the Red Sea

is just as landlocked as the gulf, since the Isthmus of Suez hasn’t

been cut all the way through yet; and even if it was, a boat as

secretive as ours wouldn’t risk a canal intersected with locks. So the

Red Sea won’t be our way back to Europe either.”

“But I didn’t say we’d return to Europe.”

“What do you figure, then?”

“I figure that after visiting these unusual waterways of Arabia and

Egypt, the Nautilus will go back down to the Indian Ocean, perhaps

through Mozambique Channel, perhaps off the Mascarene Islands, and

then make for the Cape of Good Hope.”

“And once we’re at the Cape of Good Hope?” the Canadian asked with

typical persistence.

“Well then, we’ll enter that Atlantic Ocean with which we aren’t yet

familiar. What’s wrong, Ned my friend? Are you tired of this voyage

under the seas? Are you bored with the constantly changing sight of

these underwater wonders? Speaking for myself, I’ll be extremely

distressed to see the end of a voyage so few men will ever have a

chance to make.”

“But don’t you realize, Professor Aronnax,” the Canadian replied,

“that soon we’ll have been imprisoned for three whole months aboard

this Nautilus?”

“No, Ned, I didn’t realize it, I don’t want to realize it, and I don’t

keep track of every day and every hour.”

“But when will it be over?”

“In its appointed time. Meanwhile there’s nothing we can do about it,

and our discussions are futile. My gallant Ned, if you come and tell

me, ‘A chance to escape is available to us,’ then I’ll discuss it with

you. But that isn’t the case, and in all honesty, I don’t think

Captain Nemo ever ventures into European seas.”

This short dialogue reveals that in my mania for the Nautilus, I was

turning into the spitting image of its commander.

As for Ned Land, he ended our talk in his best speechifying style:

“That’s all fine and dandy. But in my humble opinion, a life in jail

is a life without joy.”

For four days until February 3, the Nautilus inspected the Gulf of

Oman at various speeds and depths. It seemed to be traveling at

random, as if hesitating over which course to follow, but it never

crossed the Tropic of Cancer.

After leaving this gulf we raised Muscat for an instant, the most

important town in the country of Oman. I marveled at its strange

appearance in the midst of the black rocks surrounding it, against

which the white of its houses and forts stood out sharply. I spotted

the rounded domes of its mosques, the elegant tips of its minarets,

and its fresh, leafy terraces. But it was only a fleeting vision, and

the Nautilus soon sank beneath the dark waves of these waterways.

Then our ship went along at a distance of six miles from the Arabic

coasts of Mahra and Hadhramaut, their undulating lines of mountains

relieved by a few ancient ruins. On February 5 we finally put into the

Gulf of Aden, a genuine funnel stuck into the neck of Bab el Mandeb

and bottling these Indian waters in the Red Sea.

On February 6 the Nautilus cruised in sight of the city of Aden,

perched on a promontory connected to the continent by a narrow

isthmus, a sort of inaccessible Gibraltar whose fortifications the

English rebuilt after capturing it in 1839. I glimpsed the octagonal

minarets of this town, which used to be one of the wealthiest, busiest

commercial centers along this coast, as the Arab historian Idrisi

tells it.

I was convinced that when Captain Nemo reached this point, he would

back out again; but I was mistaken, and much to my surprise, he did

nothing of the sort.

The next day, February 7, we entered the Strait of Bab el Mandeb,

whose name means “Gate of Tears” in the Arabic language. Twenty miles

wide, it’s only fifty-two kilometers long, and with the Nautilus

launched at full speed, clearing it was the work of barely an

hour. But I didn’t see a thing, not even Perim Island where the

British government built fortifications to strengthen Aden’s

position. There were many English and French steamers plowing this

narrow passageway, liners going from Suez to Bombay, Calcutta,

Melbourne, Réunion Island, and Mauritius; far too much traffic for the

Nautilus to make an appearance on the surface. So it wisely stayed in

midwater.

Finally, at noon, we were plowing the waves of the Red Sea.

The Red Sea: that great lake so famous in biblical traditions, seldom

replenished by rains, fed by no important rivers, continually drained

by a high rate of evaporation, its water level dropping a meter and a

half every year! If it were fully landlocked like a lake, this odd

gulf might dry up completely; on this score it’s inferior to its

neighbors, the Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea, whose levels lower only

to the point where their evaporation exactly equals the amounts of

water they take to their hearts.

This Red Sea is 2,600 kilometers long with an average width of 240.

In the days of the Ptolemies and the Roman emperors, it was a great

commercial artery for the world, and when its isthmus has been cut

through, it will completely regain that bygone importance that the Suez

railways have already brought back in part.

I would not even attempt to understand the whim that induced Captain

Nemo to take us into this gulf. But I wholeheartedly approved of the

Nautilus’s entering it. It adopted a medium pace, sometimes staying on

the surface, sometimes diving to avoid some ship, and so I could

observe both the inside and topside of this highly unusual sea.

On February 8, as early as the first hours of daylight, Mocha appeared

before us: a town now in ruins, whose walls would collapse at the mere

sound of a cannon, and which shelters a few leafy date trees here and

there. This once-important city used to contain six public

marketplaces plus twenty-six mosques, and its walls, protected by

fourteen forts, fashioned a three-kilometer girdle around it.

Then the Nautilus drew near the beaches of Africa, where the sea is

considerably deeper. There, through the open panels and in a midwater

of crystal clarity, our ship enabled us to study wonderful bushes of

shining coral and huge chunks of rock wrapped in splendid green furs

of algae and fucus. What an indescribable sight, and what a variety of

settings and scenery where these reefs and volcanic islands leveled

off by the Libyan coast! But soon the Nautilus hugged the eastern

shore where these tree forms appeared in all their glory. This was off

the coast of Tihama, and there such zoophyte displays not only

flourished below sea level but they also fashioned picturesque

networks that unreeled as high as ten fathoms above it; the latter

were more whimsical but less colorful than the former, which kept

their bloom thanks to the moist vitality of the waters.

How many delightful hours I spent in this way at the lounge window!

How many new specimens of underwater flora and fauna I marveled at

beneath the light of our electric beacon! Mushroom-shaped fungus

coral, some slate-colored sea anemone including the species

Thalassianthus aster among others, organ-pipe coral arranged like

flutes and just begging for a puff from the god Pan, shells unique to

this sea that dwell in madreporic cavities and whose bases are twisted

into squat spirals, and finally a thousand samples of a polypary I

hadn’t observed until then: the common sponge.

First division in the polyp group, the class Spongiaria has been

created by scientists precisely for this unusual exhibit whose

usefulness is beyond dispute. The sponge is definitely not a plant, as

some naturalists still believe, but an animal of the lowest order, a

polypary inferior even to coral. Its animal nature isn’t in doubt, and

we can’t accept even the views of the ancients, who regarded it as

halfway between plant and animal. But I must say that naturalists are

not in agreement on the structural mode of sponges. For some it’s a

polypary, and for others, such as Professor Milne-Edwards, it’s a

single, solitary individual.

The class Spongiaria contains about 300 species that are encountered

in a large number of seas and even in certain streams, where they’ve

been given the name freshwater sponges. But their waters of choice are

the Red Sea and the Mediterranean near the Greek Islands or the coast

of Syria. These waters witness the reproduction and growth of soft,

delicate bath sponges whose prices run as high as 150 francs apiece:

the yellow sponge from Syria, the horn sponge from Barbary, etc. But

since I had no hope of studying these zoophytes in the seaports of the

Levant, from which we were separated by the insuperable Isthmus of

Suez, I had to be content with observing them in the waters of the Red

Sea.

So I called Conseil to my side, while at an average depth of eight to

nine meters, the Nautilus slowly skimmed every beautiful rock on the

easterly coast.

There sponges grew in every shape, globular, stalklike, leaflike,

fingerlike. With reasonable accuracy, they lived up to their nicknames

of basket sponges, chalice sponges, distaff sponges, elkhorn sponges,

lion’s paws, peacock’s tails, and Neptune’s gloves—designations

bestowed on them by fishermen, more poetically inclined than

scientists. A gelatinous, semifluid substance coated the fibrous

tissue of these sponges, and from this tissue there escaped a steady

trickle of water that, after carrying sustenance to each cell, was

being expelled by a contracting movement. This jellylike substance

disappears when the polyp dies, emitting ammonia as it rots. Finally

nothing remains but the fibers, either gelatinous or made of horn,

that constitute your household sponge, which takes on a russet hue and

is used for various tasks depending on its degree of elasticity,

permeability, or resistance to saturation.

These polyparies were sticking to rocks, shells of mollusks, and even

the stalks of water plants. They adorned the smallest crevices, some

sprawling, others standing or hanging like coral outgrowths. I told

Conseil that sponges are fished up in two ways, either by dragnet or

by hand. The latter method calls for the services of a diver, but it’s

preferable because it spares the polypary’s tissue, leaving it with a

much higher market value.

Other zoophytes swarming near the sponges consisted chiefly of a very

elegant species of jellyfish; mollusks were represented by varieties

of squid that, according to Professor Orbigny, are unique to the Red

Sea; and reptiles by virgata turtles belonging to the genus Chelonia,

which furnished our table with a dainty but wholesome dish.

As for fish, they were numerous and often remarkable. Here are the

ones that the Nautilus’s nets most frequently hauled on board: rays,

including spotted rays that were oval in shape and brick red in color,

their bodies strewn with erratic blue speckles and identifiable by

their jagged double stings, silver-backed skates, common stingrays

with stippled tails, butterfly rays that looked like huge two-meter

cloaks flapping at middepth, toothless guitarfish that were a type of

cartilaginous fish closer to the shark, trunkfish known as dromedaries

that were one and a half feet long and had humps ending in

backward-curving stings, serpentine moray eels with silver tails and

bluish backs plus brown pectorals trimmed in gray piping, a species of

butterfish called the fiatola decked out in thin gold stripes and the

three colors of the French flag, Montague blennies four decimeters

long, superb jacks handsomely embellished by seven black crosswise

streaks with blue and yellow fins plus gold and silver scales, snooks,

standard mullet with yellow heads, parrotfish, wrasse, triggerfish,

gobies, etc., plus a thousand other fish common to the oceans we had

already crossed.

On February 9 the Nautilus cruised in the widest part of the Red Sea,

measuring 190 miles straight across from Suakin on the west coast to

Qunfidha on the east coast.

At noon that day after our position fix, Captain Nemo climbed onto the

platform, where I happened to be. I vowed not to let him go below

again without at least sounding him out on his future plans. As soon

as he saw me, he came over, graciously offered me a cigar, and said to

me:

“Well, professor, are you pleased with this Red Sea? Have you seen

enough of its hidden wonders, its fish and zoophytes, its gardens of

sponges and forests of coral? Have you glimpsed the towns built on its

shores?”

“Yes, Captain Nemo,” I replied, “and the Nautilus is wonderfully

suited to this whole survey. Ah, it’s a clever boat!”

“Yes, sir, clever, daring, and invulnerable! It fears neither the Red

Sea’s dreadful storms nor its currents and reefs.”

“Indeed,” I said, “this sea is mentioned as one of the worst, and in

the days of the ancients, if I’m not mistaken, it had an abominable

reputation.”

“Thoroughly abominable, Professor Aronnax. The Greek and Latin

historians can find nothing to say in its favor, and the Greek

geographer Strabo adds that it’s especially rough during the rainy

season and the period of summer prevailing winds. The Arab Idrisi,

referring to it by the name Gulf of Colzoum, relates that ships

perished in large numbers on its sandbanks and that no one risked

navigating it by night. This, he claims, is a sea subject to fearful

hurricanes, strewn with inhospitable islands, and ‘with nothing good

to offer,’ either on its surface or in its depths. As a matter of

fact, the same views can also be found in Arrian, Agatharchides, and

Artemidorus.”

“One can easily see,” I answered, “that those historians didn’t

navigate aboard the Nautilus.”

“Indeed,” the captain replied with a smile, “and in this respect, the

moderns aren’t much farther along than the ancients. It took many

centuries to discover the mechanical power of steam! Who knows whether

we’ll see a second Nautilus within the next 100 years! Progress is

slow, Professor Aronnax.”

“It’s true,” I replied. “Your ship is a century ahead of its time,

perhaps several centuries. It would be most unfortunate if such a

secret were to die with its inventor!”

Captain Nemo did not reply. After some minutes of silence:

“We were discussing,” he said, “the views of ancient historians on the

dangers of navigating this Red Sea?”

“True,” I replied. “But weren’t their fears exaggerated?”

“Yes and no, Professor Aronnax,” answered Captain Nemo, who seemed to

know “his Red Sea” by heart. “To a modern ship, well rigged, solidly

constructed, and in control of its course thanks to obedient steam,

some conditions are no longer hazardous that offered all sorts of

dangers to the vessels of the ancients. Picture those early navigators

venturing forth in sailboats built from planks lashed together with

palm-tree ropes, caulked with powdered resin, and coated with dogfish

grease. They didn’t even have instruments for taking their bearings,

they went by guesswork in the midst of currents they barely

knew. Under such conditions, shipwrecks had to be numerous. But

nowadays steamers providing service between Suez and the South Seas

have nothing to fear from the fury of this gulf, despite the contrary

winds of its monsoons. Their captains and passengers no longer prepare

for departure with sacrifices to placate the gods, and after

returning, they don’t traipse in wreaths and gold ribbons to say

thanks at the local temple.”

“Agreed,” I said. “And steam seems to have killed off all gratitude in

seamen’s hearts. But since you seem to have made a special study of

this sea, captain, can you tell me how it got its name?”

“Many explanations exist on the subject, Professor Aronnax. Would you

like to hear the views of one chronicler in the 14th century?”

“Gladly.”

“This fanciful fellow claims the sea was given its name after the

crossing of the Israelites, when the Pharaoh perished in those waves

that came together again at Moses’ command:

To mark that miraculous sequel, the sea turned a red without equal.

Thus no other course would do but to name it for its hue.”

“An artistic explanation, Captain Nemo,” I replied, “but I’m unable to

rest content with it. So I’ll ask you for your own personal views.”

“Here they come. To my thinking, Professor Aronnax, this ‘Red Sea’

designation must be regarded as a translation of the Hebrew word

‘Edrom,’ and if the ancients gave it that name, it was because of the

unique color of its waters.”

“Until now, however, I’ve seen only clear waves, without any unique

hue.”

“Surely, but as we move ahead to the far end of this gulf, you’ll note

its odd appearance. I recall seeing the bay of El Tur completely red,

like a lake of blood.”

“And you attribute this color to the presence of microscopic algae?”

“Yes. It’s a purplish, mucilaginous substance produced by those tiny

buds known by the name trichodesmia, 40,000 of which are needed to

occupy the space of one square millimeter. Perhaps you’ll encounter

them when we reach El Tur.”

“Hence, Captain Nemo, this isn’t the first time you’ve gone through

the Red Sea aboard the Nautilus?”

“No, sir.”

“Then, since you’ve already mentioned the crossing of the Israelites

and the catastrophe that befell the Egyptians, I would ask if you’ve

ever discovered any traces under the waters of that great historic

event?”

“No, professor, and for an excellent reason.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s because that same locality where Moses crossed with all his

people is now so clogged with sand, camels can barely get their legs

wet. You can understand that my Nautilus wouldn’t have enough water

for itself.”

“And that locality is . . . ?” I asked.

“That locality lies a little above Suez in a sound that used to form a

deep estuary when the Red Sea stretched as far as the Bitter

Lakes. Now, whether or not their crossing was literally miraculous,

the Israelites did cross there in returning to the Promised Land, and

the Pharaoh’s army did perish at precisely that locality. So I think

that excavating those sands would bring to light a great many weapons

and tools of Egyptian origin.”

“Obviously,” I replied. “And for the sake of archaeology, let’s hope

that sooner or later such excavations do take place, once new towns

are settled on the isthmus after the Suez Canal has been cut through—a

canal, by the way, of little use to a ship such as the Nautilus!”

“Surely, but of great use to the world at large,” Captain Nemo

said. “The ancients well understood the usefulness to commerce of

connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, but they never dreamed

of cutting a canal between the two, and instead they picked the Nile

as their link. If we can trust tradition, it was probably Egypt’s King

Sesostris who started digging the canal needed to join the Nile with

the Red Sea. What’s certain is that in 615 B.C. King Necho II was hard

at work on a canal that was fed by Nile water and ran through the

Egyptian plains opposite Arabia. This canal could be traveled in four

days, and it was so wide, two triple-tiered galleys could pass through

it abreast. Its construction was continued by Darius the Great, son of

Hystaspes, and probably completed by King Ptolemy II. Strabo saw it

used for shipping; but the weakness of its slope between its starting

point, near Bubastis, and the Red Sea left it navigable only a few

months out of the year. This canal served commerce until the century

of Rome’s Antonine emperors; it was then abandoned and covered with

sand, subsequently reinstated by Arabia’s Caliph Omar I, and finally

filled in for good in 761 or 762 A.D. by Caliph Al-Mansur, in an

effort to prevent supplies from reaching Mohammed ibn Abdullah, who

had rebelled against him. During his Egyptian campaign, your General

Napoleon Bonaparte discovered traces of this old canal in the Suez

desert, and when the tide caught him by surprise, he wellnigh perished

just a few hours before rejoining his regiment at Hadjaroth, the very

place where Moses had pitched camp 3,300 years before him.”

“Well, captain, what the ancients hesitated to undertake, Mr. de

Lesseps is now finishing up; his joining of these two seas will

shorten the route from Cadiz to the East Indies by 9,000 kilometers,

and he’ll soon change Africa into an immense island.”

“Yes, Professor Aronnax, and you have every right to be proud of your

fellow countryman. Such a man brings a nation more honor than the

greatest commanders! Like so many others, he began with difficulties

and setbacks, but he triumphed because he has the volunteer

spirit. And it’s sad to think that this deed, which should have been

an international deed, which would have insured that any

administration went down in history, will succeed only through the

efforts of one man. So all hail to Mr. de Lesseps!”

“Yes, all hail to that great French citizen,” I replied, quite

startled by how emphatically Captain Nemo had just spoken.

“Unfortunately,” he went on, “I can’t take you through that Suez

Canal, but the day after tomorrow, you’ll be able to see the long

jetties of Port Said when we’re in the Mediterranean.”

“In the Mediterranean!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, professor. Does that amaze you?”

“What amazes me is thinking we’ll be there the day after tomorrow.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, captain, although since I’ve been aboard your vessel, I should

have formed the habit of not being amazed by anything!”

“But what is it that startles you?”

“The thought of how hideously fast the Nautilus will need to go, if

it’s to double the Cape of Good Hope, circle around Africa, and lie in

the open Mediterranean by the day after tomorrow.”

“And who says it will circle Africa, professor? What’s this talk about

doubling the Cape of Good Hope?”

“But unless the Nautilus navigates on dry land and crosses over the

isthmus—”

“Or under it, Professor Aronnax.”

“Under it?”

“Surely,” Captain Nemo replied serenely. “Under that tongue of land,

nature long ago made what man today is making on its surface.”

“What! There’s a passageway?”

“Yes, an underground passageway that I’ve named the Arabian Tunnel. It

starts below Suez and leads to the Bay of Pelusium.”

“But isn’t that isthmus only composed of quicksand?”

“To a certain depth. But at merely fifty meters, one encounters a firm

foundation of rock.”

“And it’s by luck that you discovered this passageway?” I asked, more

and more startled.

“Luck plus logic, professor, and logic even more than luck.”

“Captain, I hear you, but I can’t believe my ears.”

“Oh, sir! The old saying still holds good: Aures habent et non

audient!* Not only does this passageway exist, but I’ve taken

advantage of it on several occasions. Without it, I wouldn’t have

ventured today into such a blind alley as the Red Sea.”

*Latin: “They have ears but hear not.” Ed.

“Is it indiscreet to ask how you discovered this tunnel?”

“Sir,” the captain answered me, “there can be no secrets between men

who will never leave each other.”

I ignored this innuendo and waited for Captain Nemo’s explanation.

“Professor,” he told me, “the simple logic of the naturalist led me to

discover this passageway, and I alone am familiar with it. I’d noted

that in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean there exist a number of

absolutely identical species of fish: eels, butterfish, greenfish,

bass, jewelfish, flying fish. Certain of this fact, I wondered if

there weren’t a connection between the two seas. If there were, its

underground current had to go from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean

simply because of their difference in level. So I caught a large

number of fish in the vicinity of Suez. I slipped copper rings around

their tails and tossed them back into the sea. A few months later off

the coast of Syria, I recaptured a few specimens of my fish, adorned

with their telltale rings. So this proved to me that some connection

existed between the two seas. I searched for it with my Nautilus, I

discovered it, I ventured into it; and soon, professor, you also will

have cleared my Arabic tunnel!”