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Hebrews, "the sea" of the Greeks, the
"mare nostrum" of the Romans, bordered by orangetrees, aloes, cacti, and
seapines; embalmed with the perfume of the myrtle, surrounded by rude
mountains, saturated with pure and transparent air, but incessantly worked by
underground fires; a perfect battlefield in which Neptune and Pluto still
dispute the empire of the world!
It is upon these banks, and on these waters, says Michelet, that man is
renewed in one of the most powerful climates of the globe. But, beautiful as
it was, I could only take a rapid glance at the basin whose superficial area
is two million of square yards. Even Captain Nemo's knowledge was lost to me,
for this puzzling person did not appear once during our passage at full speed.
I estimated the course which the Nautilus took under the waves of the sea at
about six hundred leagues, and it was accomplished in fortyeight hours.
Starting on the morning of the 16th of February from the shores of Greece, we
had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar by sunrise on the 18th.
It was plain to me that this Mediterranean, enclosed in the midst of those
countries which he wished to avoid, was distasteful to Captain Nemo. Those
waves and those breezes brought back too many remembrances, if not too many
regrets. Here he had no longer that independence and that liberty of gait
which he had when in the open seas, and his Nautilus felt itself cramped
between the close shores of Africa and Europe.
Our speed was now twentyfive miles an hour. It may be well understood that Ned
Land, to his great disgust, was obliged to renounce his intended flight. He
could not launch the pinnace, going at the rate of twelve or thirteen yards
every second. To quit the Nautilus under such conditions would be as bad as
jumping from a train going at full speedan imprudent thing, to say the least
of it. Besides, our vessel only mounted to the surface of the waves at night
to renew its stock of air; it was steered entirely by the compass and the log.
I saw no more of the interior of this Mediterranean than a traveller by
express train perceives of the landscape which flies before his eyes; that is
to say, the distant horizon, and not the nearer objects which pass like a
flash of lightning.
We were then passing between Sicily and the coast of Tunis. In the narrow
space between Cape Bon and the
Straits of Messina the bottom of the sea rose almost suddenly. There was a
perfect bank, on which there was not more than nine fathoms of water, whilst
on either side the depth was ninety fathoms.
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The Nautilus had to manoeuvre very carefully so as not to strike against this
submarine barrier.
I showed Conseil, on the map of the Mediterranean, the spot occupied by this
reef.
"But if you please, sir," observed Conseil, "it is like a real isthmus joining
Europe to Africa."
"Yes, my boy, it forms a perfect bar to the Straits of Lybia, and the
soundings of Smith have proved that in former times the continents between
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Cape Boco and Cape Furina were joined."
"I can well believe it," said Conseil.
"I will add," I continued, "that a similar barrier exists between Gibraltar
and Ceuta, which in geological times formed the entire Mediterranean."
"What if some volcanic burst should one day raise these two barriers above the
waves?"
"It is not probable, Conseil."
"Well, but allow me to finish, please, sir; if this phenomenon should take
place, it will be troublesome for M.
Lesseps, who has taken so much pains to pierce the isthmus."
"I agree with you; but I repeat, Conseil, this phenomenon will never happen.
The violence of subterranean force is ever diminishing. Volcanoes, so
plentiful in the first days of the world, are being extinguished by degrees;
the internal heat is weakened, the temperature of the lower strata of the
globe is lowered by a perceptible quantity every century to the detriment of
our globe, for its heat is its life."
"But the sun?"
"The sun is not sufficient, Conseil. Can it give heat to a dead body?"
"Not that I know of."
"Well, my friend, this earth will one day be that cold corpse; it will become
uninhabitable and uninhabited like the moon, which has long since lost all its
vital heat."
"In how many centuries?"
"In some hundreds of thousands of years, my boy."
"Then," said Conseil, "we shall have time to finish our journey that is, if
Ned Land does not interfere with it."
And Conseil, reassured, returned to the study of the bank, which the Nautilus
was skirting at a moderate speed.
During the night of the 16th and 17th February we had entered the second
Mediterranean basin, the greatest depth of which was 1,450 fathoms. The
Nautilus, by the action of its crew, slid down the inclined planes and buried
itself in the lowest depths of the sea.
On the 18th of February, about three o'clock in the morning, we were at the
entrance of the Straits of
Gibraltar. There once existed two currents: an upper one, long since
recognised, which conveys the waters of
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112
the ocean into the basin of the Mediterranean; and a lower countercurrent,
which reasoning has now shown to exist. Indeed, the volume of water in the
Mediterranean, incessantly added to by the waves of the Atlantic and by rivers
falling into it, would each year raise the level of this sea, for its
evaporation is not sufficient to restore the equilibrium. As it is not so, we
must necessarily admit the existence of an undercurrent, which empties into
the basin of the Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar the surplus waters
of the Mediterranean.
A fact indeed; and it was this countercurrent by which the Nautilus profited.
It advanced rapidly by the narrow pass. For one instant I caught a glimpse of
the beautiful ruins of the temple of Hercules, buried in the ground, according
to Pliny, and with the low island which supports it; and a few minutes later
we were floating on the Atlantic.
CHAPTER VIII. VIGO BAY
The Atlantic! a vast sheet of water whose superficial area covers twentyfive
millions of square miles, the length of which is nine thousand miles, with a
mean breadth of two thousand seven hundred an ocean whose parallel winding
shores embrace an immense circumference, watered by the largest rivers of the
world, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Plata, the Orinoco,
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the Niger, the Senegal, the Elbe, the
Loire, and the Rhine, which carry water from the most civilised, as well as
from the most savage, countries!
Magnificent field of water, incessantly ploughed by vessels of every nation,
sheltered by the flags of every nation, and which terminates in those two
terrible points so dreaded by mariners, Cape Horn and the Cape of
Tempests.
The Nautilus was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having
accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a
distance greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now,
and what was reserved for the future? The Nautilus, leaving the Straits of
Gibraltar, had gone far out. It returned to the surface of the waves, and our
daily walks on the platform were restored to us.
I mounted at once, accompanied by Ned Land and Conseil. At a distance of about
twelve miles, Cape St.
Vincent was dimly to be seen, forming the southwestern point of the Spanish
peninsula. A strong southerly gale was blowing. The sea was swollen and
billowy; it made the Nautilus rock violently. It was almost impossible to keep
one's foot on the platform, which the heavy rolls of the sea beat over every
instant. So we descended after inhaling some mouthfuls of fresh air.
I returned to my room, Conseil to his cabin; but the Canadian, with a
preoccupied air, followed me. Our rapid passage across the Mediterranean had
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