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TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea.txt
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TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea.txt
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Twenty Thousand
Leagues Under
the Seas
JULES VERNE
An Underwater Tour of the World
Translated from the Original French
by F. P. Walter
With the Paintings of Milo Winter
___________________________________________________________________
CEDAR POST PUBLISHING * HOUSTON, TEXAS
Text Prepared by: F. P. Walter, 1433 Cedar Post, No. 31,
Houston, Texas 77055. (713) 827-1345
A complete, unabridged translation of Vingt milles lieues sous les
mers by Jules Verne, based on the original French texts published
in Paris by J. Hetzel et Cie. over the period 1869-71.
The paintings of Illinois watercolorist Milo Winter (1888-1956) first
appeared in a 1922 juvenile edition published by Rand McNally & Company.
VERNE'S TITLE
The French title of this novel is Vingt mille lieues sous les mers.
This is accurately translated as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under
the SEAS--rather than the SEA, as with many English editions.
Verne's novel features a tour of the major oceans, and the term Leagues
in its title is used as a measure not of depth but distance. Ed.
Contents
Color Plates vii
Introduction ix
Units of Measure xii
FIRST PART
1. A Runaway Reef 1
2. The Pros and Cons 6
3. As Master Wishes 10
4. Ned Land 14
5. At Random! 19
6. At Full Steam 24
7. A Whale of Unknown Species 30
8. "Mobilis in Mobili" 35
9. The Tantrums of Ned Land 41
10. The Man of the Waters 46
11. The Nautilus 53
12. Everything through Electricity 58
13. Some Figures 63
14. The Black Current 68
15. An Invitation in Writing 76
16. Strolling the Plains 82
17. An Underwater Forest 86
18. Four Thousand Leagues Under the Pacific 91
19. Vanikoro 96
20. The Torres Strait 103
21. Some Days Ashore 109
22. The Lightning Bolts of Captain Nemo 117
23. "Aegri Somnia" 126
24. The Coral Realm 132
SECOND PART
1. The Indian Ocean 138
2. A New Proposition from Captain Nemo 145
3. A Pearl Worth Ten Million 152
4. The Red Sea 160
5. Arabian Tunnel 170
6. The Greek Islands 176
7. The Mediterranean in Forty-Eight Hours 184
8. The Bay of Vigo 191
9. A Lost Continent 199
10. The Underwater Coalfields 206
11. The Sargasso Sea 214
12. Sperm Whales and Baleen Whales 220
13. The Ice Bank 228
14. The South Pole 236
15. Accident or Incident? 246
16. Shortage of Air 252
17. From Cape Horn to the Amazon 259
18. The Devilfish 266
19. The Gulf Stream 274
20. In Latitude 47? 24' and Longitude 17? 28' 282
21. A Mass Execution 287
22. The Last Words of Captain Nemo 294
23. Conclusion 299
Color Plates
Facing Page
The Bay of Vigo. iii
Ned Land stayed at his post. 28
"I've collected every one of them." 56
We walked with steady steps. 84
The dugout canoes drew nearer. 122
A dreadful battle was joined. 158
Picturesque ruins took shape. 202
"Farewell, O sun!" he called. 244
The poor fellow was done for. 272
An engaving by Guillaumot.
Introduction
"The deepest parts of the ocean are totally unknown to us,"
admits Professor Aronnax early in this novel. "What goes on in
those distant depths? What creatures inhabit, or could inhabit,
those regions twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface of the water?
It's almost beyond conjecture."
Jules Verne (1828-1905) published the French equivalents of these words
in 1869, and little has changed since. 126 years later, a Time
cover story on deep-sea exploration made much the same admission:
"We know more about Mars than we know about the oceans."
This reality begins to explain the dark power and otherworldly
fascination of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.
Born in the French river town of Nantes, Verne had a lifelong
passion for the sea. First as a Paris stockbroker, later as a
celebrated author and yachtsman, he went on frequent voyages--
to Britain, America, the Mediterranean. But the specific stimulus
for this novel was an 1865 fan letter from a fellow writer,
Madame George Sand. She praised Verne's two early novels Five Weeks
in a Balloon (1863) and Journey to the Center of the Earth
(1864), then added: "Soon I hope you'll take us into the ocean depths,
your characters traveling in diving equipment perfected by your
science and your imagination." Thus inspired, Verne created one
of literature's great rebels, a freedom fighter who plunged beneath
the waves to wage a unique form of guerilla warfare.
Initially, Verne's narrative was influenced by the 1863 uprising of
Poland against Tsarist Russia. The Poles were quashed with a violence
that appalled not only Verne but all Europe. As originally conceived,
Verne's Captain Nemo was a Polish nobleman whose entire family
had been slaughtered by Russian troops. Nemo builds a fabulous
futuristic submarine, the Nautilus, then conducts an underwater
campaign of vengeance against his imperialist oppressor.
But in the 1860s France had to treat the Tsar as an ally,
and Verne's publisher Pierre Hetzel pronounced the book unprintable.
Verne reworked its political content, devising new nationalities for
Nemo and his great enemy--information revealed only in a later novel,
The Mysterious Island (1875); in the present work Nemo's background
remains a dark secret. In all, the novel had a difficult gestation.
Verne and Hetzel were in constant conflict and the book went
through multiple drafts, struggles reflected in its several
working titles over the period 1865-69: early on, it was variously
called Voyage Under the Waters, Twenty-five Thousand Leagues Under
the Waters, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Waters,
and A Thousand Leagues Under the Oceans.
Verne is often dubbed, in Isaac Asimov's phrase, "the world's
first science-fiction writer." And it's true, many of his
sixty-odd books do anticipate future events and technologies:
From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Hector Servadac (1877) deal
in space travel, while Journey to the Center
of the Earth features travel to the earth's core. But with Verne
the operative word is "travel," and some of his best-known titles
don't really qualify as sci-fi: Around the World in Eighty Days
(1872) and Michael Strogoff (1876) are closer to "travelogs"--
adventure yarns in far-away places.
These observations partly apply here. The subtitle of the present
book is An Underwater Tour of the World, so in good travelog style,
the Nautilus's exploits supply an episodic story line.
Shark attacks, giant squid, cannibals, hurricanes, whale hunts,
and other rip-roaring adventures erupt almost at random. Yet this loose
structure gives the novel an air of documentary realism. What's more,
Verne adds backbone to the action by developing three recurring motifs:
the deepening mystery of Nemo's past life and future intentions,
the mounting tension between Nemo and hot-tempered harpooner Ned Land,
and Ned's ongoing schemes to escape from the Nautilus. These unifying
threads tighten the narrative and accelerate its momentum.
Other subtleties occur inside each episode, the textures sparkling
with wit, information, and insight. Verne regards the sea from
many angles: in the domain of marine biology, he gives us thumbnail
sketches of fish, seashells, coral, sometimes in great catalogs
that swirl past like musical cascades; in the realm of geology,
he studies volcanoes literally inside and out; in the world of commerce,
he celebrates the high-energy entrepreneurs who lay the Atlantic Cable
or dig the Suez Canal. And Verne's marine engineering proves
especially authoritative. His specifications for an open-sea submarine
and a self-contained diving suit were decades before their time,
yet modern technology bears them out triumphantly.
True, today's scientists know a few things he didn't: the South Pole
isn't at the water's edge but far inland; sharks don't flip
over before attacking; giant squid sport ten tentacles not eight;
sperm whales don't prey on their whalebone cousins. This notwithstanding,
Verne furnishes the most evocative portrayal of the ocean depths
before the arrival of Jacques Cousteau and technicolor film.
Lastly the book has stature as a novel of character. Even the
supporting cast is shrewdly drawn: Professor Aronnax, the career
scientist caught in an ethical conflict; Conseil, the compulsive
classifier who supplies humorous tag lines for Verne's fast facts;
the harpooner Ned Land, a creature of constant appetites,
man as heroic animal.
But much of the novel's brooding power comes from Captain Nemo.
Inventor, musician, Renaissance genius, he's a trail-blazing creation,
the prototype not only for countless renegade scientists in
popular fiction, but even for such varied figures as Sherlock Holmes
or Wolf Larsen. However, Verne gives his hero's brilliance
and benevolence a dark underside--the man's obsessive hate for his
old enemy. This compulsion leads Nemo into ugly contradictions:
he's a fighter for freedom, yet all who board his ship are imprisoned
there for good; he works to save lives, both human and animal,
yet he himself creates a holocaust; he detests imperialism,
yet he lays personal claim to the South Pole. And in this last action
he falls into the classic sin of Pride. He's swiftly punished.
The Nautilus nearly perishes in the Antarctic and Nemo sinks into
a growing depression.
Like Shakespeare's King Lear he courts death and madness in a great storm,
then commits mass murder, collapses in catatonic paralysis,
and suicidally runs his ship into the ocean's most dangerous whirlpool.
Hate swallows him whole.
For many, then, this book has been a source of fascination,
surely one of the most influential novels ever written, an inspiration
for such scientists and discoverers as engineer Simon Lake,
oceanographer William Beebe, polar traveler Sir Ernest Shackleton.
Likewise Dr. Robert D. Ballard, finder of the sunken Titanic,
confesses that this was his favorite book as a teenager,
and Cousteau himself, most renowned of marine explorers, called it
his shipboard bible.
The present translation is a faithful yet communicative rendering
of the original French texts published in Paris by J. Hetzel et Cie.--
the hardcover first edition issued in the autumn of 1871,
collated with the softcover editions of the First and Second Parts
issued separately in the autumn of 1869 and the summer of 1870.
Although prior English versions have often been heavily abridged,
this new translation is complete to the smallest substantive detail.
Because, as that Time cover story suggests, we still haven't caught
up with Verne. Even in our era of satellite dishes and video games,
the seas keep their secrets. We've seen progress in sonar, torpedoes,
and other belligerent machinery, but sailors and scientists--
to say nothing of tourists--have yet to voyage in a submarine
with the luxury and efficiency of the Nautilus.
F. P. WALTER
University of Houston
Units of Measure
CABLE LENGTH In Verne's context, 600 feet
CENTIGRADE 0 degrees centigrade = freezing water
37 degrees centigrade = human body temperature
100 degrees centigrade = boiling water
FATHOM 6 feet
GRAM Roughly 1/28 of an ounce
- MILLIGRAM Roughly 1/28,000 of an ounce
- KILOGRAM (KILO) Roughly 2.2 pounds
HECTARE Roughly 2.5 acres
KNOT 1.15 miles per hour
LEAGUE In Verne's context, 2.16 miles
LITER Roughly 1 quart
METER Roughly 1 yard, 3 inches
- MILLIMETER Roughly 1/25 of an inch
- CENTIMETER Roughly 2/5 of an inch
- DECIMETER Roughly 4 inches
- KILOMETER Roughly 6/10 of a mile
- MYRIAMETER Roughly 6.2 miles
TON, METRIC Roughly 2,200 pounds viii
FIRST PART
___________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER 1
A Runaway Reef
THE YEAR 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained
and downright inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has forgotten.
Without getting into those rumors that upset civilians
in the seaports and deranged the public mind even far inland,
it must be said that professional seamen were especially alarmed.
Traders, shipowners, captains of vessels, skippers, and master mariners
from Europe and America, naval officers from every country, and at
their heels the various national governments on these two continents,
were all extremely disturbed by the business.
In essence, over a period of time several ships had encountered
"an enormous thing" at sea, a long spindle-shaped object,
sometimes giving off a phosphorescent glow, infinitely bigger
and faster than any whale.
The relevant data on this apparition, as recorded in various logbooks,
agreed pretty closely as to the structure of the object or creature
in question, its unprecedented speed of movement, its startling
locomotive power, and the unique vitality with which it seemed
to be gifted. If it was a cetacean, it exceeded in bulk any whale
previously classified by science. No naturalist, neither Cuvier nor
Lacépčde, neither Professor Dumeril nor Professor de Quatrefages,
would have accepted the existence of such a monster sight unseen--
specifically, unseen by their own scientific eyes.
Striking an average of observations taken at different times--
rejecting those timid estimates that gave the object a length
of 200 feet, and ignoring those exaggerated views that saw it
as a mile wide and three long--you could still assert that this
phenomenal creature greatly exceeded the dimensions of anything
then known to ichthyologists, if it existed at all.
Now then, it did exist, this was an undeniable fact; and since
the human mind dotes on objects of wonder, you can understand
the worldwide excitement caused by this unearthly apparition.
As for relegating it to the realm of fiction, that charge had
to be dropped.
In essence, on July 20, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson,
from the Calcutta & Burnach Steam Navigation Co., encountered this
moving mass five miles off the eastern shores of Australia.
Captain Baker at first thought he was in the presence of an unknown reef;
he was even about to fix its exact position when two waterspouts
shot out of this inexplicable object and sprang hissing into the air
some 150 feet. So, unless this reef was subject to the intermittent
eruptions of a geyser, the Governor Higginson had fair and honest
dealings with some aquatic mammal, until then unknown, that could
spurt from its blowholes waterspouts mixed with air and steam.
Similar events were likewise observed in Pacific seas, on July 23
of the same year, by the Christopher Columbus from the West India
& Pacific Steam Navigation Co. Consequently, this extraordinary
cetacean could transfer itself from one locality to another with
startling swiftness, since within an interval of just three days,
the Governor Higginson and the Christopher Columbus had observed
it at two positions on the charts separated by a distance of more
than 700 nautical leagues.
Fifteen days later and 2,000 leagues farther, the Helvetia from
the Compagnie Nationale and the Shannon from the Royal Mail line,
running on opposite tacks in that part of the Atlantic lying
between the United States and Europe, respectively signaled each
other that the monster had been sighted in latitude 42 degrees 15'
north and longitude 60 degrees 35' west of the meridian
of Greenwich. From their simultaneous observations, they were able
to estimate the mammal's minimum length at more than 350 English
feet;* this was because both the Shannon and the Helvetia were of
smaller dimensions, although each measured 100 meters stem to stern.
Now then, the biggest whales, those rorqual whales that frequent
the waterways of the Aleutian Islands, have never exceeded a length
of 56 meters--if they reach even that.
*Author's Note: About 106 meters. An English foot is
only 30.4 centimeters.
One after another, reports arrived that would profoundly affect
public opinion: new observations taken by the transatlantic
liner Pereire, the Inman line's Etna running afoul of the monster,
an official report drawn up by officers on the French frigate Normandy,
dead-earnest reckonings obtained by the general staff of
Commodore Fitz-James aboard the Lord Clyde. In lighthearted countries,
people joked about this phenomenon, but such serious, practical countries
as England, America, and Germany were deeply concerned.
In every big city the monster was the latest rage; they sang
about it in the coffee houses, they ridiculed it in the newspapers,
they dramatized it in the theaters. The tabloids found it a fine
opportunity for hatching all sorts of hoaxes. In those newspapers
short of copy, you saw the reappearance of every gigantic
imaginary creature, from "Moby Dick," that dreadful white whale from
the High Arctic regions, to the stupendous kraken whose tentacles
could entwine a 500-ton craft and drag it into the ocean depths.
They even reprinted reports from ancient times: the views
of Aristotle and Pliny accepting the existence of such monsters,
then the Norwegian stories of Bishop Pontoppidan, the narratives
of Paul Egede, and finally the reports of Captain Harrington--
whose good faith is above suspicion--in which he claims he saw,
while aboard the Castilian in 1857, one of those enormous
serpents that, until then, had frequented only the seas of France's
old extremist newspaper, The Constitutionalist.
An interminable debate then broke out between believers and
skeptics in the scholarly societies and scientific journals.
The "monster question" inflamed all minds. During this
memorable campaign, journalists making a profession of science
battled with those making a profession of wit, spilling waves of ink
and some of them even two or three drops of blood, since they went
from sea serpents to the most offensive personal remarks.
For six months the war seesawed. With inexhaustible zest,
the popular press took potshots at feature articles from
the Geographic Institute of Brazil, the Royal Academy of Science
in Berlin, the British Association, the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington, D.C., at discussions in The Indian Archipelago,
in Cosmos published by Father Moigno, in Petermann's Mittheilungen,*
and at scientific chronicles in the great French and foreign newspapers.
When the monster's detractors cited a saying by the botanist Linnaeus
that "nature doesn't make leaps," witty writers in the popular
periodicals parodied it, maintaining in essence that "nature doesn't
make lunatics," and ordering their contemporaries never to give
the lie to nature by believing in krakens, sea serpents, "Moby Dicks,"
and other all-out efforts from drunken seamen. Finally, in a much-feared
satirical journal, an article by its most popular columnist finished
off the monster for good, spurning it in the style of Hippolytus
repulsing the amorous advances of his stepmother Phaedra, and giving
the creature its quietus amid a universal burst of laughter.
Wit had defeated science.
*German: "Bulletin." Ed.
During the first months of the year 1867, the question seemed to
be buried, and it didn't seem due for resurrection, when new facts
were brought to the public's attention. But now it was no longer
an issue of a scientific problem to be solved, but a quite real and
serious danger to be avoided. The question took an entirely new turn.
The monster again became an islet, rock, or reef, but a runaway reef,
unfixed and elusive.
On March 5, 1867, the Moravian from the Montreal Ocean Co., lying
during the night in latitude 27 degrees 30' and longitude 72
degrees 15', ran its starboard quarter afoul of a rock marked on no
charts of these waterways. Under the combined efforts of wind and
400-horsepower steam, it was traveling at a speed of thirteen knots.
Without the high quality of its hull, the Moravian would surely have
split open from this collision and gone down together with those 237
passengers it was bringing back from Canada.
This accident happened around five o'clock in the morning, just as day was
beginning to break. The officers on watch rushed to the craft's stern.
They examined the ocean with the most scrupulous care.
They saw nothing except a strong eddy breaking three cable
lengths out, as if those sheets of water had been violently churned.
The site's exact bearings were taken, and the Moravian continued on
course apparently undamaged. Had it run afoul of an underwater rock
or the wreckage of some enormous derelict ship? They were unable to say.
But when they examined its undersides in the service yard,
they discovered that part of its keel had been smashed.
This occurrence, extremely serious in itself, might perhaps have
been forgotten like so many others, if three weeks later it hadn't
been reenacted under identical conditions. Only, thanks to the
nationality of the ship victimized by this new ramming, and thanks
to the reputation of the company to which this ship belonged,
the event caused an immense uproar.
No one is unaware of the name of that famous English shipowner,
Cunard. In 1840 this shrewd industrialist founded a postal service
between Liverpool and Halifax, featuring three wooden ships with
400-horsepower paddle wheels and a burden of 1,162 metric tons.
Eight years later, the company's assets were increased by four
650-horsepower ships at 1,820 metric tons, and in two more years,
by two other vessels of still greater power and tonnage.
In 1853 the Cunard Co., whose mail-carrying charter had just been renewed,
successively added to its assets the Arabia, the Persia, the China,
the Scotia, the Java, and the Russia, all ships of top speed and,
after the Great Eastern, the biggest ever to plow the seas.
So in 1867 this company owned twelve ships, eight with paddle wheels
and four with propellers.
If I give these highly condensed details, it is so everyone can fully
understand the importance of this maritime transportation company,
known the world over for its shrewd management. No transoceanic
navigational undertaking has been conducted with more ability,
no business dealings have been crowned with greater success.
In twenty-six years Cunard ships have made 2,000 Atlantic crossings
without so much as a voyage canceled, a delay recorded, a man, a craft,
or even a letter lost. Accordingly, despite strong competition
from France, passengers still choose the Cunard line in preference
to all others, as can be seen in a recent survey of official documents.
Given this, no one will be astonished at the uproar provoked by this
accident involving one of its finest steamers.
On April 13, 1867, with a smooth sea and a moderate breeze,
the Scotia lay in longitude 15 degrees 12' and latitude 45 degrees
37'. It was traveling at a speed of 13.43 knots under the thrust
of its 1,000-horsepower engines. Its paddle wheels were churning
the sea with perfect steadiness. It was then drawing 6.7 meters
of water and displacing 6,624 cubic meters.
At 4:17 in the afternoon, during a high tea for passengers gathered
in the main lounge, a collision occurred, scarcely noticeable
on the whole, affecting the Scotia's hull in that quarter a little
astern of its port paddle wheel.
The Scotia hadn't run afoul of something, it had been fouled,
and by a cutting or perforating instrument rather than a blunt one.
This encounter seemed so minor that nobody on board would have been
disturbed by it, had it not been for the shouts of crewmen in the hold,
who climbed on deck yelling:
"We're sinking! We're sinking!"
At first the passengers were quite frightened, but Captain Anderson
hastened to reassure them. In fact, there could be no immediate danger.
Divided into seven compartments by watertight bulkheads, the Scotia
could brave any leak with impunity.
Captain Anderson immediately made his way into the hold.
He discovered that the fifth compartment had been invaded by the sea,
and the speed of this invasion proved that the leak was considerable.
Fortunately this compartment didn't contain the boilers,
because their furnaces would have been abruptly extinguished.
Captain Anderson called an immediate halt, and one of his sailors
dived down to assess the damage. Within moments they had
located a hole two meters in width on the steamer's underside.
Such a leak could not be patched, and with its paddle wheels
half swamped, the Scotia had no choice but to continue its voyage.
By then it lay 300 miles from Cape Clear, and after three days
of delay that filled Liverpool with acute anxiety, it entered
the company docks.
The engineers then proceeded to inspect the Scotia, which had
been put in dry dock. They couldn't believe their eyes.
Two and a half meters below its waterline, there gaped
a symmetrical gash in the shape of an isosceles triangle.
This breach in the sheet iron was so perfectly formed, no punch
could have done a cleaner job of it. Consequently, it must
have been produced by a perforating tool of uncommon toughness--
plus, after being launched with prodigious power and then piercing
four centimeters of sheet iron, this tool had needed to withdraw
itself by a backward motion truly inexplicable.
This was the last straw, and it resulted in arousing public passions
all over again. Indeed, from this moment on, any maritime casualty
without an established cause was charged to the monster's account.
This outrageous animal had to shoulder responsibility for all
derelict vessels, whose numbers are unfortunately considerable,
since out of those 3,000 ships whose losses are recorded annually
at the marine insurance bureau, the figure for steam or sailing
ships supposedly lost with all hands, in the absence of any news,
amounts to at least 200!
Now then, justly or unjustly, it was the "monster" who stood accused
of their disappearance; and since, thanks to it, travel between
the various continents had become more and more dangerous,
the public spoke up and demanded straight out that, at all cost,
the seas be purged of this fearsome cetacean.
CHAPTER 2
The Pros and Cons
DURING THE PERIOD in which these developments were occurring,
I had returned from a scientific undertaking organized to explore
the Nebraska badlands in the United States. In my capacity as
Assistant Professor at the Paris Museum of Natural History, I had
been attached to this expedition by the French government.
After spending six months in Nebraska, I arrived in New York laden
with valuable collections near the end of March. My departure
for France was set for early May. In the meantime, then, I was busy
classifying my mineralogical, botanical, and zoological treasures
when that incident took place with the Scotia.
I was perfectly abreast of this question, which was the big news
of the day, and how could I not have been? I had read and reread every
American and European newspaper without being any farther along.
This mystery puzzled me. Finding it impossible to form any views,
I drifted from one extreme to the other. Something was out there,
that much was certain, and any doubting Thomas was invited to place
his finger on the Scotia's wound.
When I arrived in New York, the question was at the boiling point.
The hypothesis of a drifting islet or an elusive reef, put forward
by people not quite in their right minds, was completely eliminated.
And indeed, unless this reef had an engine in its belly, how could
it move about with such prodigious speed?
Also discredited was the idea of a floating hull or some other
enormous wreckage, and again because of this speed of movement.
So only two possible solutions to the question were left,
creating two very distinct groups of supporters: on one side,
those favoring a monster of colossal strength; on the other,
those favoring an "underwater boat" of tremendous motor power.
Now then, although the latter hypothesis was completely admissible,
it couldn't stand up to inquiries conducted in both the New World
and the Old. That a private individual had such a mechanism at his
disposal was less than probable. Where and when had he built it,
and how could he have built it in secret?
Only some government could own such an engine of destruction,
and in these disaster-filled times, when men tax their ingenuity to
build increasingly powerful aggressive weapons, it was possible that,
unknown to the rest of the world, some nation could have been testing
such a fearsome machine. The Chassepot rifle led to the torpedo,
and the torpedo has led to this underwater battering ram,
which in turn will lead to the world putting its foot down.
At least I hope it will.
But this hypothesis of a war machine collapsed in the face of formal
denials from the various governments. Since the public interest
was at stake and transoceanic travel was suffering, the sincerity
of these governments could not be doubted. Besides, how could
the assembly of this underwater boat have escaped public notice?
Keeping a secret under such circumstances would be difficult enough
for an individual, and certainly impossible for a nation whose
every move is under constant surveillance by rival powers.
So, after inquiries conducted in England, France, Russia, Prussia,
Spain, Italy, America, and even Turkey, the hypothesis of an underwater
Monitor was ultimately rejected.
And so the monster surfaced again, despite the endless witticisms
heaped on it by the popular press, and the human imagination soon
got caught up in the most ridiculous ichthyological fantasies.
After I arrived in New York, several people did me the honor
of consulting me on the phenomenon in question. In France I had
published a two-volume work, in quarto, entitled The Mysteries
of the Great Ocean Depths. Well received in scholarly circles,
this book had established me as a specialist in this pretty obscure field
of natural history. My views were in demand. As long as I could deny
the reality of the business, I confined myself to a flat "no comment."
But soon, pinned to the wall, I had to explain myself straight out.
And in this vein, "the honorable Pierre Aronnax, Professor at
the Paris Museum," was summoned by The New York Herald to formulate
his views no matter what.
I complied. Since I could no longer hold my tongue, I let it wag.
I discussed the question in its every aspect, both political
and scientific, and this is an excerpt from the well-padded article
I published in the issue of April 30.
"Therefore," I wrote, "after examining these different hypotheses one
by one, we are forced, every other supposition having been refuted,
to accept the existence of an extremely powerful marine animal.
"The deepest parts of the ocean are totally unknown to us.
No soundings have been able to reach them. What goes on in
those distant depths? What creatures inhabit, or could inhabit,
those regions twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface
of the water? What is the constitution of these animals?
It's almost beyond conjecture.
"However, the solution to this problem submitted to me can take
the form of a choice between two alternatives.
"Either we know every variety of creature populating our planet,
or we do not.
"If we do not know every one of them, if nature still keeps
ichthyological secrets from us, nothing is more admissible than to accept
the existence of fish or cetaceans of new species or even new genera,
animals with a basically 'cast-iron' constitution that inhabit
strata beyond the reach of our soundings, and which some development
or other, an urge or a whim if you prefer, can bring to the upper
level of the ocean for long intervals.
"If, on the other hand, we do know every living species, we must
look for the animal in question among those marine creatures
already cataloged, and in this event I would be inclined to accept
the existence of a giant narwhale.
"The common narwhale, or sea unicorn, often reaches a length of
sixty feet. Increase its dimensions fivefold or even tenfold, then give
this cetacean a strength in proportion to its size while enlarging
its offensive weapons, and you have the animal we're looking for.
It would have the proportions determined by the officers of the Shannon,
the instrument needed to perforate the Scotia, and the power
to pierce a steamer's hull.
"In essence, the narwhale is armed with a sort of ivory sword,
or lance, as certain naturalists have expressed it.
It's a king-sized tooth as hard as steel. Some of these teeth have
been found buried in the bodies of baleen whales, which the narwhale
attacks with invariable success. Others have been wrenched,
not without difficulty, from the undersides of vessels that narwhales
have pierced clean through, as a gimlet pierces a wine barrel.
The museum at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris owns one of these
tusks with a length of 2.25 meters and a width at its base
of forty-eight centimeters!
"All right then! Imagine this weapon to be ten times stronger and
the animal ten times more powerful, launch it at a speed of twenty
miles per hour, multiply its mass times its velocity, and you get
just the collision we need to cause the specified catastrophe.
"So, until information becomes more abundant, I plump for a sea
unicorn of colossal dimensions, no longer armed with a mere lance
but with an actual spur, like ironclad frigates or those warships called
'rams,' whose mass and motor power it would possess simultaneously.
"This inexplicable phenomenon is thus explained away--unless it's
something else entirely, which, despite everything that has
been sighted, studied, explored and experienced, is still possible!"
These last words were cowardly of me; but as far as I could,
I wanted to protect my professorial dignity and not lay myself open
to laughter from the Americans, who when they do laugh, laugh raucously.
I had left myself a loophole. Yet deep down, I had accepted
the existence of "the monster."
My article was hotly debated, causing a fine old uproar.
It rallied a number of supporters. Moreover, the solution
it proposed allowed for free play of the imagination.
The human mind enjoys impressive visions of unearthly creatures.
Now then, the sea is precisely their best medium, the only setting
suitable for the breeding and growing of such giants--next to which
such land animals as elephants or rhinoceroses are mere dwarves.
The liquid masses support the largest known species of mammals and perhaps
conceal mollusks of incomparable size or crustaceans too frightful
to contemplate, such as 100-meter lobsters or crabs weighing 200
metric tons! Why not? Formerly, in prehistoric days, land animals
(quadrupeds, apes, reptiles, birds) were built on a gigantic scale.
Our Creator cast them using a colossal mold that time has gradually
made smaller. With its untold depths, couldn't the sea keep alive
such huge specimens of life from another age, this sea that never
changes while the land masses undergo almost continuous alteration?
Couldn't the heart of the ocean hide the last-remaining
varieties of these titanic species, for whom years are centuries
and centuries millennia?
But I mustn't let these fantasies run away with me! Enough of these
fairy tales that time has changed for me into harsh realities.
I repeat: opinion had crystallized as to the nature of this phenomenon,
and the public accepted without argument the existence of a prodigious
creature that had nothing in common with the fabled sea serpent.
Yet if some saw it purely as a scientific problem to be solved,
more practical people, especially in America and England,
were determined to purge the ocean of this daunting monster, to insure
the safety of transoceanic travel. The industrial and commercial
newspapers dealt with the question chiefly from this viewpoint.
The Shipping & Mercantile Gazette, the Lloyd's List, France's Packetboat
and Maritime & Colonial Review, all the rags devoted to
insurance companies--who threatened to raise their premium rates--
were unanimous on this point.
Public opinion being pronounced, the States of the Union were
the first in the field. In New York preparations were under way for
an expedition designed to chase this narwhale. A high-speed frigate,
the Abraham Lincoln, was fitted out for putting to sea as soon
as possible. The naval arsenals were unlocked for Commander Farragut,
who pressed energetically forward with the arming of his frigate.
But, as it always happens, just when a decision had been made to chase
the monster, the monster put in no further appearances. For two months
nobody heard a word about it. Not a single ship encountered it.
Apparently the unicorn had gotten wise to these plots being woven
around it. People were constantly babbling about the creature,
even via the Atlantic Cable! Accordingly, the wags claimed that this
slippery rascal had waylaid some passing telegram and was making
the most of it.
So the frigate was equipped for a far-off voyage and armed
with fearsome fishing gear, but nobody knew where to steer it.
And impatience grew until, on June 2, word came that the Tampico,
a steamer on the San Francisco line sailing from California to Shanghai,
had sighted the animal again, three weeks before in the northerly
seas of the Pacific.
This news caused intense excitement. Not even a 24-hour breather was
granted to Commander Farragut. His provisions were loaded on board.
His coal bunkers were overflowing. Not a crewman was missing
from his post. To cast off, he needed only to fire and stoke
his furnaces! Half a day's delay would have been unforgivable!
But Commander Farragut wanted nothing more than to go forth.
I received a letter three hours before the Abraham Lincoln left
its Brooklyn pier;* the letter read as follows:
*Author's Note: A pier is a type of wharf expressly set aside
for an individual vessel.
Pierre Aronnax
Professor at the Paris Museum
Fifth Avenue Hotel
New York
Sir:
If you would like to join the expedition on the Abraham Lincoln,
the government of the Union will be pleased to regard you as France's
representative in this undertaking. Commander Farragut has a cabin
at your disposal.
Very cordially yours,
J. B. HOBSON,
Secretary of the Navy.
CHAPTER 3
As Master Wishes
THREE SECONDS before the arrival of J. B. Hobson's letter,
I no more dreamed of chasing the unicorn than of trying for
the Northwest Passage. Three seconds after reading this letter
from the honorable Secretary of the Navy, I understood at last that
my true vocation, my sole purpose in life, was to hunt down this
disturbing monster and rid the world of it.
Even so, I had just returned from an arduous journey, exhausted and badly
needing a rest. I wanted nothing more than to see my country again,
my friends, my modest quarters by the Botanical Gardens,
my dearly beloved collections! But now nothing could hold me back.
I forgot everything else, and without another thought of exhaustion,
friends, or collections, I accepted the American government's offer.
"Besides," I mused, "all roads lead home to Europe, and our unicorn
may be gracious enough to take me toward the coast of France! That fine
animal may even let itself be captured in European seas--as a personal
favor to me--and I'll bring back to the Museum of Natural History
at least half a meter of its ivory lance!"
But in the meantime I would have to look for this narwhale in
the northern Pacific Ocean; which meant returning to France by way
of the Antipodes.
"Conseil!" I called in an impatient voice.
Conseil was my manservant. A devoted lad who went with me on all
my journeys; a gallant Flemish boy whom I genuinely liked and who
returned the compliment; a born stoic, punctilious on principle,
habitually hardworking, rarely startled by life's surprises,
very skillful with his hands, efficient in his every duty, and despite
his having a name that means "counsel," never giving advice--
not even the unsolicited kind!
From rubbing shoulders with scientists in our little universe
by the Botanical Gardens, the boy had come to know a thing or two.
In Conseil I had a seasoned specialist in biological classification,
an enthusiast who could run with acrobatic agility up and down
the whole ladder of branches, groups, classes, subclasses,
orders, families, genera, subgenera, species, and varieties.
But there his science came to a halt. Classifying was everything
to him, so he knew nothing else. Well versed in the theory
of classification, he was poorly versed in its practical application,
and I doubt that he could tell a sperm whale from a baleen whale!
And yet, what a fine, gallant lad!
For the past ten years, Conseil had gone with me wherever
science beckoned. Not once did he comment on the length or the hardships
of a journey. Never did he object to buckling up his suitcase for any
country whatever, China or the Congo, no matter how far off it was.
He went here, there, and everywhere in perfect contentment.
Moreover, he enjoyed excellent health that defied all ailments,
owned solid muscles, but hadn't a nerve in him, not a sign of nerves--
the mental type, I mean.