CHAPTER XVII

FROM 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 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.'"