Part 1 · Chapter 17Four Thousand Leagues Under the Pacific

The next morning, November eighteenth, I was totally back to normal after yesterday's craziness, and I headed up to the deck just as the second lieutenant was saying his usual line.

I was checking out how awesome the ocean looked when Captain Nemo showed up. He didn't even notice I was there and started doing a bunch of astronomy stuff. Then, when he was done, he leaned against the railing of the watch-light and just stared out at the ocean, lost in thought.

Meanwhile, a bunch of the crew from the Nautilus - all strong, healthy guys - came up to the deck too. They were pulling up the nets they'd laid out all night. You could tell they were from all over the place, even though you could see a European look in everyone.

I spotted some Irish guys, Frenchmen, Slavs, and a Greek, or maybe a Candiote. They were polite, and they only spoke in this weird language I couldn't understand, and I didn’t even try to ask them about it.

They hauled in the nets. They were huge, like the ones you see along the Normandy coast - basically, giant pockets held open by the waves and a chain in the smaller holes. These pockets, pulled by iron poles, swept through the water, catching everything in their path.

That day, they brought up some seriously interesting stuff from those rich waters.

I figured the haul must have been over nine hundred pounds of fish. It was a great catch, but not surprising. The nets go down for hours, and they scoop up an endless variety of things. We never ran out of good food, and the Nautilus's speed and the electric light could always restock our supply.

All that stuff from the sea got lowered through a panel to the steward’s room, some to eat fresh, and others to pickle.

When the fishing was done and the air supply refreshed, I thought the Nautilus was about to keep going on its underwater trip and I was getting ready to head back to my room, when the Captain suddenly turned to me, saying:

Professor, isn’t the ocean practically alive? It has its moods, calm and rough. Yesterday it was sleeping, just like we were, and now it’s waking up after a quiet night. Look!

"he continued, "it’s waking up under the sun’s warmth.

"It’s going to start a new day. It’s fascinating to watch how it all works. It has a pulse, arteries, and spasms. I totally agree with Maury, who figured out that it has a circulation just like animals do."

"Yeah, the ocean definitely has circulation, and to help it out, the Creator made sure there’s tons of stuff in it - heat, salt, and tiny organisms."

When Captain Nemo said that, he seemed totally different, and it stirred up a lot of feelings in me.

"Also," he added, "real existence is there. I can picture underwater towns, clusters of submarine houses, which, like the Nautilus, would surface every morning to breathe, free towns, independent cities. But who knows, maybe some dictator - - "

Captain Nemo finished his sentence with a frustrated wave of his hand. Then, addressing me as if to chase away a sad thought:

"Mr. Aronnax," he asked, "do you know how deep the ocean is?"

"I only know what the main soundings have shown us, Captain."

"Could you tell me, so I can use that information?"

"These are some I remember," I replied, "and I don’t think I’m wrong. A depth of eight thousand feet has been found in the North Atlantic, and two,five hundred feet in the Mediterranean."

"The most amazing soundings were made in the South Atlantic, near the thirty-fifth parallel, and they showed twelve thousand feet, fourteen thousand feet, and fifteen thousand feet. All together, they figure the average depth would be about one and three-quarter leagues if you leveled the ocean floor."

"Well, Professor," replied the Captain, "we’ll show you better than that, I hope. As for the average depth of this part of the Pacific, I’m telling you it’s only four thousand yards."

After saying that, Captain Nemo headed toward the panel and disappeared down the ladder. I followed him and went into the big living room. The propeller started right away, and the log showed we were going twenty miles an hour.

Over the days and weeks that passed, Captain Nemo barely visited. I hardly ever saw him. The lieutenant kept track of the Nautilus’s route on the chart, so I could always tell exactly where we were going.

Pretty much every day for a while, they opened the panels in the living room, and we were never bored watching the mysteries of the underwater world.

The Nautilus was generally heading southeast, staying between one hundred and one hundred and fifty yards below the surface. One day, though, I don’t know why, being pulled diagonally by the angled planes, it touched the ocean floor.

The thermometer showed a temperature of four point two five degrees Celsius - a temperature that seemed normal at that depth.

At three in the morning on November twenty-sixth, the Nautilus crossed the Tropic of Cancer at one hundred and seventy-two° longitude. On the twenty-seventh, we spotted the Sandwich Islands, where Cook died, February fourteen, seventeen seventy-nine. We’d traveled about four thousand, eight hundred and sixty nautical miles from where we started.

In the morning, when I went out on the deck, I saw Hawaii, the biggest of the seven islands in the group, about two miles to the northeast.

I could clearly see the cultivated areas, and the several mountain ranges running parallel to the coast, and the volcanoes that towered over Mouna-Rea, which rises five thousand yards above sea level.

Besides other things, the nets brought up some flabellariae and graceful polyps that are unique to that part of the ocean. The Nautilus kept heading southeast.

It crossed the equator on December seventh, at one hundred and forty-two° longitude, and on December fourth, after a quick crossing without anything special happening, we spotted the Marquesas Islands. I saw Martin’s peak on Nouka-Hiva, the largest of the group that belongs to France, about three miles away.

I only saw the wooded mountains against the horizon, because Captain Nemo didn’t want to turn the ship into the wind.

The nets brought up some really beautiful fish: some with azure fins and tails like gold, which tasted amazing; some almost without scales but delicious; others with bony jaws and yellowish gills, as good as bonitos - all fish that would be useful to us.

After leaving those charming islands protected by the French flag, the Nautilus sailed about two,zero miles from December fourth to eleventh.

During the daytime on December eleventh, I was busy reading in the big living room. Ned Land and Conseil were watching the glowing water through the slightly open panels. The Nautilus was still.

While its tanks were filling, it stayed at a depth of one,zero yards, a part of the ocean that’s rarely visited, and where you don’t usually see big fish.

I was reading a great book by Jean Mace, The Slaves of the Stomach, and learning some good lessons, when Conseil interrupted me.

"Will master come here a moment?" he said in a strange voice. "What’s the matter, Conseil?" "I want master to look."

I got up, went over, and leaned on my elbows to look through the windows.

In a bright electric light, a huge black mass, completely still, was hanging in the water. I watched it closely, trying to figure out what kind of giant whale it was. But then a thought struck me. "A ship!" I said almost to myself.

"Yeah," replied the Canadian, "a disabled ship that sank straight down."

Ned Land was totally right; we were near a ship, and its ripped sails were still hanging from the ropes. The bottom of the ship looked okay, and it had only been wrecked a few hours ago. Three broken masts, snapped off about two feet above the deck, showed the ship had to lose them.

But it was on its side, full of water, and tilting over to the left. This wrecked shell of what it used to be was a sad sight, lost under the waves, but even sadder was the deck, where some bodies, tied up with ropes, were still there.

I counted five - four guys, one of whom was standing at the wheel, and a woman standing at the back, holding a baby in her arms. She looked really young. I could see her face clearly, because the water hadn't messed it up too much, thanks to the bright lights from the Nautilus.

In one last, desperate try, she’s lifted her baby above her head - poor little thing - whose arms were wrapped around her neck. The four sailors looked terrifying, all twisted from trying to break free from the ropes holding them to the ship.

The guy steering was different, though, calm, with a serious, clear face, his gray hair stuck to his forehead, and his hand still gripping the wheel. He seemed to be guiding the three broken masts through the ocean depths, even then.

What a scene! We were speechless; our hearts were pounding at this shipwreck, like it was taken straight from life and frozen in a photo of its last moments. And I could already see huge sharks coming, with hungry eyes, drawn to the human bodies.

But the Nautilus turned and circled the sunken ship, and in a flash, I read the name on the back: "The Florida, Sunderland."