Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (19 page)

During the daytime of the 11th of December, I was busy reading in the large drawing-room. Ned Land and Conseil watched the luminous water through the half-open panels. The
Nautilus
was immovable. While its reservoirs were filled, it kept at a depth of 1,000 yards, a region rarely visited in the ocean, and in which large fish were seldom seen.

I was then reading a charming book by Jean Macé,
^ap
“The Slaves of the Stomach,” and I was learning some valuable lessons from it, when Conseil interrupted me.

“Will master come here a moment?” he said in a curious voice.

“What is the matter, Conseil?”

“I want master to look.”

I rose, went and leaned on my elbows before the panes, and watched.

In a full electric light, an enormous black mass, quite immovable, was suspended in the midst of the waters. I watched it attentively, seeking to find out the nature of this gigantic cetacean. But a sudden thought crossed my mind. “A vessel!” I said, half aloud.

“Yes,” replied the Canadian, “a disabled ship that has sunk perpendicularly.”

Ned Land was right; we were close to a vessel of which the tattered shrouds still hung from their chains. The keel seemed to be in good order, and it had been wrecked at most some few hours. Three stumps of masts, broken off about two feet above the bridge, showed that the vessel had had to sacrifice its masts. But, lying on its side, it had filled, and it was heeling over to port. This skeleton of what it had once been was a sad spectacle as it lay lost under the waves; but sadder still was the sight of the bridge, where some corpses, bound with ropes, were still lying. I counted five—four men, one of whom was standing at the helm, and a woman standing by the poop holding an infant in her arms. She was quite young. I could distinguish her features, which the water had not decomposed, by the brilliant light from the
Nautilus.
In one despairing effort, she had raised her infant above her head, poor little thing, whose arms encircled its mother’s neck. The attitude of the four sailors was frightful, distorted as they were by their convulsive movements, while making a last effort to free themselves from the cords that bound them to the vessel. The steersman alone, calm, with a grave, clear face, his gray hair glued to his forehead, and his hand clutching the wheel of the helm, seemed even then to be guiding the three broken masts through the depths of the ocean.

What a scene! We were dumb; our hearts beat fast before this shipwreck, taken as it were from life, and photographed in its last moments. And I saw already, coming toward it with hungry eyes, enormous sharks, attracted by the human flesh.

However, the Nautilus, turning, went round the submerged vessel, and in one instant I read on the stern—
The Florida, Sunder-land.

THIS TERRIBLE SPECTACLE WAS the forerunner of the series of maritime catastrophes that the
Nautilus
was destined to meet with in its route. As long as it went through more frequented waters, we often saw the hulls of shipwrecked vessels that were rotting in the depths, and, deeper down, cannons, bullets, anchors, chains, and a thousand other iron materials eaten up by rust. However, on the 11 th of December, we sighted the Pomotou Islands, the old “dangerous group” of Bougainville,
²⁹
that extend over a space of 500 leagues at E.S.E. to W.N.W., from the Island Ducie to that of Lazareff. This group covers an area of 370 square leagues, and it is formed of sixty groups of islands, among which the Gambier group is remarkable, over which France exercises sway. These are coral islands, slowly raised, but continuous, created by the daily work of polypi. Then this new island will be joined later on to the neighboring groups, and a fifth continent will stretch from New Zealand and New Caledonia, and from thence to the Marquesas.

One day, when I was suggesting this theory to Captain Nemo, he replied coldly:

Chance had conducted the
Nautilus
toward the island of Clermont-Tonnerre, one of the most curious of the group that was discovered in 1822 by Captain Bell of the
Minerva.
I could study now the madreporal system, to which are due the islands in this ocean.

Madrepores (which must not be mistaken for corals) have a tissue lined with a calcareous crust, and the modifications of its structure have induced M. Milne-Edwards, my worthy master, to class them into five sections. The animalculæ that the marine polypus secretes live by millions at the bottom of their cells. Their calcareous deposits become rocks, reefs, and large and small islands. Here they form a ring, surrounding a little inland lake, that communicates with the sea by means of gaps. There they make barriers of reefs like those on the coast of New Caledonia and the various Pomotou islands. In other places, like those at Reunion and at Maurice, they raise fringed reefs, high, straight walls, near which the depth of the ocean is considerable.

Some cable-lengths off the shores of the island of Clermont, I admired the gigantic work accomplished by these microscopical workers. These walls are especially the work of those madrepores known as milleporas, porites, and astræas, These polypi are found particularly in the rough beds of the sea, near the surface; and consequently it is from the upper part that they begin their operations in which they bury themselves by degrees with the debris of the secretions that support them. Such is, at least, Darwin’s theory, who thus explains the formation of the
atolls,
³⁰
a superior theory (to my mind) to that given of the foundation of the madreporical works, summits of mountains or volcanoes, that are submerged some feet below the level of the sea.

I could observe closely these curious walls, for perpendicularly they were more than 300 yards deep, and our electric sheets lighted up this calcareous matter brilliantly. Replying to a question Conseil asked me as to the time these colossal barriers took to be raised, I astonished him much by telling him that learned men reckoned it about the eighth of an inch in a hundred years.

Toward evening Clermont-Tonnerre was lost in the distance, and the route of the
Nautilus
was sensibly changed. After having crossed the Tropic of Capricorn in 135° longitude, it sailed W.N.W., making again for the tropical zone. Although the summer sun was very strong, we did not suffer from heat, for at fifteen or twenty fathoms below the surface the temperature did not rise above from ten to twelve degrees.

On December 15, we left to the east the bewitching group of the Societies and the graceful Tahiti, queen of the Pacific. I saw in the morning, some miles to the windward, the elevated summits of the island. These waters furnished our table with excellent fish, mackerel, bonitos, and albicores, and some varieties of a sea-serpent called munirophis.

On the 25th of December the
Nautilus
sailed into the midst of the New Hebrides, discovered by Quiros in 1606, and that Bougainville explored in 1768, and to which Cook gave its present name in 1773. This group is composed principally of nine large islands, that form a band of 120 leagues N.N.E. to S.S.W., between 15° and 20° south latitude, and 164° and 168° longitude. We passed tolerably near to the island of Aurou, that at noon looked like a mass of green woods surmounted by a peak of great height.

That day being Christmas Day, Ned Land seemed to regret sorely the non-celebration of “Christmas,” the family
fête
^aq
of which Protestants are so fond. I had not seen Captain Nemo for a week when, on the morning of the 27th, he came into the large drawing-room, always seeming as if he had seen you five minutes before. I was busily tracing the route of the
Nautilus
on the planisphere. The captain came up to me, put his finger on one spot on the chart, and said this single word:

“Vanikoro.”

The effect was magical! It was the name of the islands on which La Perouse had been lost!
³¹
I rose suddenly.

“The
Nautilus
has brought us to Vanikoro?” I asked.

“Yes, professor,” said the captain.

“And I can visit the celebrated islands where the
Boussole
and the
Astrolabe
struck?”

“If you like, professor.”

“When shall we be there?”

“We are there now.”

Followed by Captain Nemo, I went up on to the platform, and greedily scanned the horizon.

To the N.E. two volcanic islands emerged, of unequal size, surrounded by a coral reef that measured forty miles in circumference.

We were close to Vanikoro, really the one to which Dumont d’Urville gave the name of Isle de la Récherché, and exactly facing the little harbor of Vanou, situated in 16° 4’ south latitude, and 164° 32’ east longitude. The earth seemed covered with verdure from the shore to the summits in the interior, that were crowned by Mount Kapogo, 476 feet high. The
Nautilus,
having passed the outer belt of rocks by a narrow strait, found itself among breakers where the sea was from thirty to forty fathoms deep. Under the verdant shade of some mangroves I perceived some savages, who appeared greatly surprised at our approach. In the long black body, moving between wind and water, did they not see some formidable cetacean that they regarded with suspicion?

Just then Captain Nemo asked me what I knew about the wreck of La Perouse.

“Only what everyone knows, captain,” I replied.

“And could you tell me what everyone knows about it?” he inquired ironically.

“Easily.”

I related to him all that the last works of Dumont d’Urville had made known—works from which the following is a brief account.

La Perouse, and his second, Captain de Langle, were sent by Louis XVI, in 1785, on a voyage of circumnavigation. They embarked in the corvettes the
Boussole
and the
Astrolabe,
neither of which were again heard of. In 1791 the French government, justly uneasy as to the fate of these two sloops, manned two large merchantmen, the
Récherché
and the
Esperance,
which left Brest the 28th of September, under the command of Bruni d’Entrecasteaux.

Two months after, they learned from Bowen, commander of the
Albemarle,
that the debris of shipwrecked vessels had been seen on the coasts of New Georgia. But D’Entrecasteaux, ignoring this communication—rather uncertain besides—directed his course toward the Admiralty Isles, mentioned in a report of Captain Hunter’s as being the place where La Perouse was wrecked.

They sought in vain. The
Esperance
and the
Récherché
passed before Vanikoro without stopping there, and in fact this voyage was most disastrous, as it cost D’Entrecasteaux his life, and those of two of his lieutenants, besides several of his crew.

Captain Dillon, a shrewd old Pacific sailor, was the first to find unmistakable traces of the wrecks. On the 15th of May,1824, his vessel, the
St. Patrick,
passed close to Tikopia, one of the New Hebrides. There a Lascar came alongside in a canoe, sold him the handle of a sword in silver, that bore the print of characters engraved on the hilt. The Lascar pretended that six years before, during a stay at Vanikoro, he had seen two Europeans that belonged to some vessels that had run aground on the reefs some years ago.

Dillon guessed that he meant La Perouse, whose disappearance had troubled the whole world. He tried to get on to Vanikoro, where according to the Lascar he would find numerous debris of the wreck, but winds and tide prevented him.

Dillon returned to Calcutta. There he interested the Asiatic Society and the Indian Company in his discovery. A vessel, to which was given the name of the
Récherché,
was put at his disposal, and he set out, January 23, 1827, accompanied by a French agent.

The
Récherché,
after touching at several points in the Pacific, cast anchor before Vanikoro, July 7, 1827, in this same harbor of Vanou where the
Nautilus
was at this time.

There it collected numerous relics of the wreck—iron utensils, anchors, pulley-strops, swivel-guns, an eighteen-pound shot, fragments of astronomical instruments, a piece of crown-work, and a bronze clock, bearing this inscription:
“Bazin m’a fait,”
^ar
the mark of the foundry of the arsenal at Brest about 1785. There could be no further doubt.

Dillon, having made all inquiries, stayed in the unlucky place till October. Then he quitted Vanikoro, and directed his course toward New Zealand; put into Calcutta, April 7, 1828, and returned to France, where he was warmly welcomed by Charles X.

But at the same time, without knowing Dillon’s movements, Dumont d‘Urville had already set out to find the scene of the wreck. And they had learned from a whaler that some medals and a cross of St. Louis had been found in the hands of some savages of Louisiade and New Caledonia. Dumont d’Urville, commander of the
Astrolabe,
had then sailed, and two months after Dillon had left Vanikoro, he put into Hobart Town. There he learned the results of Dillon’s inquiries, and found that a certain James Hobbs, second lieutenant of the
Union,
of Calcutta, after landing on an island situated 8° 18’ south latitude, and 156° 30’ east longitude, had seen some iron bars and red stuffs used by the natives of these parts. Dumont d’Urville, much perplexed, and not knowing how to credit the reports of low-class journals, decided to follow Dillon’s track.

On the 10th of February, 1828, the
Astrolabe
appeared off Tikopia, and D’Urville took as guide and interpreter a deserter found on the island; made his way to Vanikoro, sighted it on the 12th inst., lay among the reefs until the 14th, and not until the 20th did he cast anchor within the barrier in the harbor of Vanou.

On the 23d, several officers went round the island, and brought back some unimportant trifles. The natives, adopting a system of denials and evasions, refused to take them to the unlucky place. This ambiguous conduct led them to believe that the natives had ill-treated the castaways, and indeed they seemed to fear that Dumont d’Urville had come to avenge La Perouse and his unfortunate crew.