Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

s great sea, Captain Nemo's life was passing, even to his grave, which he had prepared in one of its deepest abysses. There, not one of the ocean's monsters could trouble the last sleep of the

t myself with the theory

instincts freely. To my mind, this explains but one side of Captain Nemo's character. Indeed, the mystery of that last night during which we had been chained in prison, the sleep, and the precaution so violently taken by the Captain of snatching from my eyes the glass I had raised to sweep t

glimpse of light amidst all the darkness, and I mus

igar, and watched the operation. It seemed to me that the man did not understand French; for several times I made remarks in a loud vo

rings, placed similar to those in a lighthouse, and which projected their brilliance in a horizontal plane. The electric lamp was combined in such a way as to give its most powerful light. Indeed, it was produced in vacuo, which insured both its steadiness and its intensity. This vacuum economised the graphite points between w

oated between fifty and a hundred fathoms deep. We went on so for some days. To anyone but myself, who had a great love for the sea, the hours would have seemed long and monotonous; but the daily walks on the platform, when I steep

eptable water-game. Amongst large-winged birds, carried a long distance from all lands and resting upon the waves from the fatigue of their flig

rised the secrets of their aquatic life through the open panels.

a solid quadrangle. Amongst the triangular I saw some an inch and a half in length, with wholesome flesh and a delicious flavour; they are brown at the tail, and yellow at the fins, and I recommend their introduction into fresh water, to which a certain number of sea-fish easily accustom themselves. I would also mention quadrangular ostracions, having on the

hite bands, and without tails; diodons, real sea-porcupines, furnished with spikes, and capable of swelling in such a way as to look like cushions bristling with darts; hippocampi, common to every ocean; some pegasi with lengthened snouts, which their pectoral fins, being much elongated and formed in the shape of wings, allow, if not to fly, at least to shoot into the air; pigeon spatu

lls, according to the sub-class to which they belong. The second sub-class gives us specimens of didactyles fourteen or fifteen inches in length, with yellow rays, and heads of a most fantastic appearance. As to the first sub-class, it gives several specimens of that singular looking fish appropriately called a

however, were soon distanced by our speed, though some kept their place in the waters of the Nautilus for a time. The morning of the 24th, in 12° 5' S. lat., and 94° 33' long., we observed Keeling Island, a coral formation, planted with magnificent cocos, and which had been visited by Mr. Darwin and Captain Fitzroy. The Nautilus sk

zon, and our course was directed to the north

the waterline. In that way we went about two miles, but without ever obtaining the greatest depths of the Indian Sea, which soundings of seven thousand fathoms have never reached. As to the temper

d not have taken it for a gigantic cetacean? Three parts of this day I spent on the platform. I watched the sea. Nothing on the horizon, till about four o'clock a steamer running west on our counter. Her masts were vis

twilight which binds night to day in tropical zones,

of the ocean. We could count several hundreds. They belonged

ix were elongated, and stretched out floating on the water, whilst the other two, rolled up flat, were spread to the wing like a light sail. I saw their spiral

. But as if at a signal every sail was furled, the arms folded, the body drawn in, the shells turned over, changing their ce

e reeds, scarcely raised by the breeze, la

f teeth-eyed sharks-their throat being marked with a large black spot surrounded with white like an eye. There were also some Isabella sharks, with rounded snouts marked with dark spots. These powerful creatures often hurled themselves at the windows of the saloon with such violence as to make us feel very insecure. At such times Ned Land was no longer ma

surface of the water. They were the dead of the Indian villages, carried by the Ganges to the level of the sea, and which the vultur

ctified. Was it the effect of the lunar rays? No; for the moon, scarcely two days old, was still lying hidden under the horizon i

stioned me as to the cause of this strange

extent of white wavelets often to be seen on the

what causes such an effect? for I suppose

sort of luminous little worm, gelatinous and without colour, of the thickness of a hair, and whose length is

gues!" excla

se infusoria. You will not be able, for, if I am not mistaken,

n to the limits of the horizon, the sky reflected the whitened waves, and for