Kabanata Kabanata 40 · FROM CAPE HORN TO THE AMAZON

CAPE HORN TO THE AMAZON

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

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 Plata, and was, on

the 4th of April, fifty-six miles off 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 easterly 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 north 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 of three and a half

miles perpendicular in height, and, at the parallel of the Cape Verde

Islands, another 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 sirenian 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,

medusæ, 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.’”

CHAPT