From Cape Horn To The Amazon
:
PART TWO
How I got on to the platform, I have no idea; perhaps the Canadian had
carried me there. But I breathed, I inhaled the vivifying sea-air. My
two companions were getting drunk with the fresh particles. The other
unhappy men had been so long without food, that they could not with
impunity indulge in the simplest aliments that were given them. We, on
the contrary, had no end to restrain ourselves; we could draw this air
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freely into our lungs, and it was the breeze, the breeze alone, that
filled us with this keen enjoyment.
"Ah!" said Conseil, "how delightful this oxygen is! Master need not
fear to breathe it. There is enough for everybody."
Ned Land did not speak, but he opened his jaws wide enough to frighten
a shark. Our strength soon returned, and, when I looked round me, I
saw we were alone on the platform. The foreign seamen in the Nautilus
were contented with the air that circulated in the interior; none of
them had come to drink in the open air.
The first words I spoke were words of gratitude and thankfulness to my
two companions. Ned and Conseil had prolonged my life during the last
hours of this long agony. All my gratitude could not repay such
devotion.
"My friends," said I, "we are bound one to the other for ever, and I am
under infinite obligations to you."
"Which I shall take advantage of," exclaimed the Canadian.
"What do you mean?" said Conseil.
"I mean that I shall take you with me when I leave this infernal
Nautilus."
"Well," said Conseil, "after all this, are we going right?"
"Yes," I replied, "for we are going the way of the sun, and here the
sun is in the north."
"No doubt," said Ned Land; "but it remains to be seen whether he will
bring the ship into the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean, that is, into
frequented or deserted seas."
I could not answer that question, and I feared that Captain Nemo would
rather take us to the vast ocean that touches the coasts of Asia and
America at the same time. He would thus complete the tour round the
submarine world, and return to those waters in which the Nautilus could
sail freely. We ought, before long, to settle this important point.
The Nautilus went at a rapid pace. The polar circle was soon passed,
and the course shaped for Cape Horn. We were off the American point,
March 31st, at seven o'clock in the evening. Then all our past
sufferings were forgotten. The remembrance of that imprisonment in the
ice was effaced from our minds. We only thought of the future.
Captain Nemo did not appear again either in the drawing-room or on the
platform. The point shown each day on the planisphere, and, marked by
the lieutenant, showed me the exact direction of the Nautilus. Now, on
that evening, it was evident, to, my great satisfaction, that we were
going back to the North by the Atlantic. The next day, April 1st, when
the Nautilus ascended to the surface some minutes before noon, we
sighted land to the west. It was Terra del Fuego, which the first
navigators named thus from seeing the quantity of smoke that rose from
the natives' huts. The coast seemed low to me, but in the distance
rose high mountains. I even thought I had a glimpse of Mount
Sarmiento, that rises 2,070 yards above the level of the sea, with a
very pointed summit, which, according as it is misty or clear, is a
sign of fine or of wet weather. At this moment the peak was clearly
defined against the sky. The Nautilus, diving again under the water,
approached the coast, which was only some few miles off. From the
glass windows in the drawing-room, I saw long seaweeds and gigantic
fuci and varech, of which the open polar sea contains so many
specimens, with their sharp polished filaments; they measured about 300
yards in length--real cables, thicker than one's thumb; and, having
great tenacity, they are often used as ropes for vessels. Another weed
known as velp, with leaves four feet long, buried in the coral
concretions, hung at the bottom. It served as nest and food for
myriads of crustacea and molluscs, crabs, and cuttlefish. There seals
and otters had splendid repasts, eating the flesh of fish with
sea-vegetables, according to the English fashion. Over this fertile
and luxuriant ground the Nautilus passed with great rapidity. Towards
evening it approached the Falkland group, the rough summits of which I
recognised the following day. The depth of the sea was moderate. On
the shores our nets brought in beautiful specimens of sea weed, and
particularly a certain fucus, the roots of which were filled with the
best mussels in the world. Geese and ducks fell by dozens on the
platform, and soon took their places in the pantry on board.
When the last heights of the Falklands had disappeared from the
horizon, the Nautilus sank to between twenty and twenty-five yards, and
followed the American coast. Captain Nemo did not show himself. Until
the 3rd of April we did not quit the shores of Patagonia, sometimes
under the ocean, sometimes at the surface. The Nautilus passed beyond
the large estuary formed by the Uraguay. Its direction was northwards,
and followed the long windings of the coast of South America. We had
then made 1,600 miles since our embarkation in the seas of Japan.
About eleven o'clock in the morning the Tropic of Capricorn was crossed
on the thirty-seventh meridian, and we passed Cape Frio standing out to
sea. Captain Nemo, to Ned Land's great displeasure, did not like the
neighbourhood of the inhabited coasts of Brazil, for we went at a giddy
speed. Not a fish, not a bird of the swiftest kind could follow us,
and the natural curiosities of these seas escaped all observation.
This speed was kept up for several days, and in the evening of the 9th
of April we sighted the most westerly point of South America that forms
Cape San Roque. But then the Nautilus swerved again, and sought the
lowest depth of a submarine valley which is between this Cape and
Sierra Leone on the African coast. This valley bifurcates to the
parallel of the Antilles, and terminates at the mouth by the enormous
depression of 9,000 yards. In this place, the geological basin of the
ocean forms, as far as the Lesser Antilles, a cliff to three and a half
miles perpendicular in height, and, at the parallel of the Cape Verde
Islands, an other wall not less considerable, that encloses thus all
the sunk continent of the Atlantic. The bottom of this immense valley
is dotted with some mountains, that give to these submarine places a
picturesque aspect. I speak, moreover, from the manuscript charts that
were in the library of the Nautilus--charts evidently due to Captain
Nemo's hand, and made after his personal observations. For two days
the desert and deep waters were visited by means of the inclined
planes. The Nautilus was furnished with long diagonal broadsides which
carried it to all elevations. But on the 11th of April it rose
suddenly, and land appeared at the mouth of the Amazon River, a vast
estuary, the embouchure of which is so considerable that it freshens
the sea-water for the distance of several leagues.
The equator was crossed. Twenty miles to the west were the Guianas, a
French territory, on which we could have found an easy refuge; but a
stiff breeze was blowing, and the furious waves would not have allowed
a single boat to face them. Ned Land understood that, no doubt, for he
spoke not a word about it. For my part, I made no allusion to his
schemes of flight, for I would not urge him to make an attempt that
must inevitably fail. I made the time pass pleasantly by interesting
studies. During the days of April 11th and 12th, the Nautilus did not
leave the surface of the sea, and the net brought in a marvellous haul
of Zoophytes, fish and reptiles. Some zoophytes had been fished up by
the chain of the nets; they were for the most part beautiful
phyctallines, belonging to the actinidian family, and among other
species the phyctalis protexta, peculiar to that part of the ocean,
with a little cylindrical trunk, ornamented With vertical lines,
speckled with red dots, crowning a marvellous blossoming of tentacles.
As to the molluscs, they consisted of some I had already
observed--turritellas, olive porphyras, with regular lines
intercrossed, with red spots standing out plainly against the flesh;
odd pteroceras, like petrified scorpions; translucid hyaleas,
argonauts, cuttle-fish (excellent eating), and certain species of
calmars that naturalists of antiquity have classed amongst the
flying-fish, and that serve principally for bait for cod-fishing. I had
now an opportunity of studying several species of fish on these shores.
Amongst the cartilaginous ones, petromyzons-pricka, a sort of eel,
fifteen inches long, with a greenish head, violet fins, grey-blue back,
brown belly, silvered and sown with bright spots, the pupil of the eye
encircled with gold--a curious animal, that the current of the Amazon
had drawn to the sea, for they inhabit fresh waters--tuberculated
streaks, with pointed snouts, and a long loose tail, armed with a long
jagged sting; little sharks, a yard long, grey and whitish skin, and
several rows of teeth, bent back, that are generally known by the name
of pantouffles; vespertilios, a kind of red isosceles triangle, half a
yard long, to which pectorals are attached by fleshy prolongations that
make them look like bats, but that their horny appendage, situated near
the nostrils, has given them the name of sea-unicorns; lastly, some
species of balistae, the curassavian, whose spots were of a brilliant
gold colour, and the capriscus of clear violet, and with varying shades
like a pigeon's throat.
I end here this catalogue, which is somewhat dry perhaps, but very
exact, with a series of bony fish that I observed in passing belonging
to the apteronotes, and whose snout is white as snow, the body of a
beautiful black, marked with a very long loose fleshy strip;
odontognathes, armed with spikes; sardines nine inches long, glittering
with a bright silver light; a species of mackerel provided with two
anal fins; centronotes of a blackish tint, that are fished for with
torches, long fish, two yards in length, with fat flesh, white and
firm, which, when they arc fresh, taste like eel, and when dry, like
smoked salmon; labres, half red, covered with scales only at the bottom
of the dorsal and anal fins; chrysoptera, on which gold and silver
blend their brightness with that of the ruby and topaz; golden-tailed
spares, the flesh of which is extremely delicate, and whose
phosphorescent properties betray them in the midst of the waters;
orange-coloured spares with long tongues; maigres, with gold caudal
fins, dark thorn-tails, anableps of Surinam, etc.
Notwithstanding this "et cetera," I must not omit to mention fish that
Conseil will long remember, and with good reason. One of our nets had
hauled up a sort of very flat ray fish, which, with the tail cut off,
formed a perfect disc, and weighed twenty ounces. It was white
underneath, red above, with large round spots of dark blue encircled
with black, very glossy skin, terminating in a bilobed fin. Laid out on
the platform, it struggled, tried to turn itself by convulsive
movements, and made so many efforts, that one last turn had nearly sent
it into the sea. But Conseil, not wishing to let the fish go, rushed to
it, and, before I could prevent him, had seized it with both hands. In
a moment he was overthrown, his legs in the air, and half his body
paralysed, crying--
"Oh! master, master! help me!"
It was the first time the poor boy had spoken to me so familiarly. The
Canadian and I took him up, and rubbed his contracted arms till he
became sensible. The unfortunate Conseil had attacked a cramp-fish of
the most dangerous kind, the cumana. This odd animal, in a medium
conductor like water, strikes fish at several yards' distance, so great
is the power of its electric organ, the two principal surfaces of which
do not measure less than twenty-seven square feet. The next day, April
12th, the Nautilus approached the Dutch coast, near the mouth of the
Maroni. There several groups of sea-cows herded together; they were
manatees, that, like the dugong and the stellera, belong to the skenian
order. These beautiful animals, peaceable and inoffensive, from
eighteen to twenty-one feet in length, weigh at least sixteen
hundredweight. I told Ned Land and Conseil that provident nature had
assigned an important role to these mammalia. Indeed, they, like the
seals, are designed to graze on the submarine prairies, and thus
destroy the accumulation of weed that obstructs the tropical rivers.
"And do you know," I added, "what has been the result since men have
almost entirely annihilated this useful race? That the putrefied weeds
have poisoned the air, and the poisoned air causes the yellow fever,
that desolates these beautiful countries. Enormous vegetations are
multiplied under the torrid seas, and the evil is irresistibly
developed from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to Florida. If we are
to believe Toussenel, this plague is nothing to what it would be if the
seas were cleaned of whales and seals. Then, infested with poulps,
medusae, and cuttle-fish, they would become immense centres of
infection, since their waves would not possess 'these vast stomachs
that God had charged to infest the surface of the seas.'"