Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea
by Jules Verne
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
A SHIFTING REEF
The year 1866 was signalised by a
remarkable incident, a mysterious and
puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no
one has yet forgotten. Not to mention
rumours which agitated the maritime
population and excited the public mind, even
in the interior of continents, seafaring men
were particularly excited. Merchants,
common sailors, captains of vessels,
skippers, both of Europe and America, naval
officers of all countries, and the Governments
of several states on the two continents, were
deeply interested in the matter.
For some time past, vessels had
been met by "an enormous thing," a
long object, spindle-shaped,
occasionally phosphorescent, and
infinitely larger and more rapid in its
movements than a whale.
The facts relating to this apparition
(entered in various log-books)
agreed in most respects as to the
shape of the object or creature in
question, the untiring rapidity of its
movements, its surprising power of
locomotion, and the peculiar life with
which it seemed endowed. If it was a
cetacean, it surpassed in size all
those hitherto classified in science.
Taking into consideration the mean of
observations made at divers
times,—rejecting the timid estimate of
those who assigned to this object a length
of two hundred feet, equally with the
exaggerated opinions which set it down as
a mile in width and three in length,—we
might fairly conclude that this mysterious
being surpassed greatly all dimensions
admitted by the ichthyologists of the day, if
it existed at all.
And that it did exist was an undeniable
fact; and, with that tendency which
disposes the human mind in favour of the
marvellous, we can understand the
excitement produced in the entire world by
this supernatural apparition. As to classing
it in the list of fables, the idea was out of
the question.
On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer
Governor Higginson, of the Calcutta and
Burnach Steam Navigation Company, had
met this moving mass five miles off the east
coast of Australia. Captain Baker thought at
first that he was in the presence of an
unknown sandbank; he even prepared to
determine its exact position, when two
columns of water, projected by the
inexplicable object, shot with a hissing noise
a hundred and fifty feet up into the air.
Now, unless the sandbank had been
submitted to the intermittent eruption
of a geyser, the Governor Higginson
had to do neither more nor less than
with an aquatic mammal, unknown
till then, which threw up from its
blow-holes columns of water mixed
with air and vapour.
Similar facts were observed on the 23rd of July
in the same year, in the Pacific Ocean, by the
Columbus, of the West India and Pacific Steam
Navigation Company. But this extraordinary
cetaceous creature could transport itself from
one place to another with surprising velocity; as,
in an interval of three days, the Governor
Higginson and the Columbus had observed it at
two different points of the chart, separated by a
distance of more than seven hundred nautical
leagues.
Fifteen days later, two thousand miles
farther off, the Helvetia, of the
Compagnie-Nationale, and the Shannon,
of the Royal Mail Steamship Company,
sailing to windward in that portion of the
Atlantic lying between the United States
and Europe, respectively signalled the
monster to each other in 42° 15′ N. lat.
and 60° 35′ W. long.
In these simultaneous observations they thought
themselves justified in estimating the minimum
length of the mammal at more than three
hundred and fifty feet, as the Shannon and
Helvetia were of smaller dimensions than it,
though they measured three hundred feet over
all.
Now the largest whales, those which frequent
those parts of the sea round the Aleutian,
Kulammak, and Umgullich islands, have never
exceeded the length of sixty yards, if they attain
that.
These reports arriving one after the
other, with fresh observations made
on board the transatlantic ship
Pereire, a collision which occurred
between the Etna of the Inman line
and the monster, a procès verbal
directed by the officers of the French
frigate Normandie, a very accurate
survey made by the staff of
Commodore Fitz-James on board
the Lord Clyde, greatly influenced
public opinion. Light-thinking people
jested upon the phenomenon, but
grave practical countries, such as
England, America, and Germany,
treated the matter more seriously.
In every place of great resort the monster was
the fashion. They sang of it in the cafés,
ridiculed it in the papers, and represented it on
the stage. All kinds of stories were circulated
regarding it. There appeared in the papers
caricatures of every gigantic and imaginary
creature, from the white whale, the terrible
"Moby Dick" of hyperborean regions, to the
immense kraken whose tentacles could
entangle a ship of five hundred tons, and hurry it
into the abyss of the ocean.
The legends of ancient times were even
resuscitated, and the opinions of Aristotle
and Pliny revived, who admitted the
existence of these monsters, as well as the
Norwegian tales of Bishop Pontoppidan, the
accounts of Paul Heggede, and, last of all,
the reports of Mister Harrington (whose
good faith no one could suspect), who
affirmed that, being on board the Castillan,
in 1857, he had seen this enormous
serpent, which had never until that time
frequented any other seas but those of the
ancient "Constitutionnel."
Then burst forth the interminable controversy
between the credulous and the incredulous in
the societies of savants and the scientific
journals. "The question of the monster" inflamed
all minds. Editors of scientific journals,
quarrelling with believers in the supernatural,
spilled seas of ink during this memorable
campaign, some even drawing blood; for, from
the sea-serpent they came to direct
personalities.
For six months war was waged with various
fortune in the leading articles of the
Geographical Institution of Brazil, the Royal
Academy of Science of Berlin, the British
Association, the Smithsonian Institution of
Washington, in the discussions of the "Indian
Archipelago," of the Cosmos of the Abbé
Moigno, in the Mittheilungen of Petermann, in
the scientific chronicles of the great journals of
France and other countries. The cheaper
journals replied keenly and with inexhaustible
zest.
These satirical writers parodied a remark
of Linnæus, quoted by the adversaries of
the monster, maintaining "that nature did
not make fools," and adjured their
contemporaries not to give the lie to
nature, by admitting the existence of
krakens, sea-serpents, "Moby Dicks," and
other lucubrations of delirious sailors. At
length an article in a well-known satirical
journal by a favourite contributor, the chief
of the staff, settled the monster, like
Hippolytus, giving it the death-blow amidst
an universal burst of laughter. Wit had
conquered science.
During the first months of the year
1867 the question seemed buried,
never to revive, when new facts
were brought before the public. It
was then no longer a scientific
problem to be solved, but a real
danger seriously to be avoided. The
question took quite another shape.
The monster became a small island,
a rock, a reef, but a reef of indefinite
and shifting proportions.
On the 5th of March, 1867, the Moravian, of
the Montreal Ocean Company, finding herself
during the night in 27° 30′ lat. and 72° 15′
long., struck on her starboard quarter a rock,
marked in no chart for that part of the sea.
Under the combined efforts of the wind and
its four hundred horse-power, it was going at
the rate of thirteen knots. Had it not been for
the superior strength of the hull of the
Moravian, she would have been broken by
the shock and gone down with the 237
passengers she was bringing home from
Canada.
The accident happened about five o'clock
in the morning, as the day was breaking.
The officers of the quarter-deck hurried to
the after- part of the vessel. They examined
the sea with the most scrupulous attention.
They saw nothing but a strong eddy about
three cables' length distant, as if the
surface had been violently agitated. The
bearings of the place were taken exactly,
and the Moravian continued its route
without apparent damage. Had it struck on
a submerged rock, or on an enormous
wreck? they could not tell; but on
examination of the ship's bottom when
undergoing repairs, it was found that part
of her keel was broken.
This fact, so grave in itself, might perhaps
have been forgotten like many others if, three
weeks after, it had not been re-enacted under
similar circumstances. But, thanks to the
nationality of the victim of the shock, thanks
to the reputation of the company to which the
vessel belonged, the circumstance became
extensively circulated.
The 13th of April, 1867, the sea being beautiful,
the breeze favourable, the Scotia, of the Cunard
Company's line, found herself in 15° 12′ long.
and 45° 37′ lat. She was going at the speed of
thirteen knots and a half.
At seventeen minutes past four in the afternoon,
whilst the passengers were assembled at lunch
in the great saloon, a slight shock was felt on
the hull of the Scotia, on her quarter, a little aft
of the port-paddle.
The Scotia had not struck, but she had been
struck, and seemingly by something rather
sharp and penetrating than blunt. The shock
had been so slight that no one had been
alarmed, had it not been for the shouts of the
carpenter's watch, who rushed on to the bridge,
exclaiming, "We are sinking! we are sinking!" At
first the passengers were much frightened, but
Captain Anderson hastened to reassure them.
The danger could not be imminent. The Scotia,
divided into seven compartments by strong
partitions, could brave with impunity any leak.
Captain Anderson went down immediately into
the hold.
He found that the sea was pouring into the fifth
compartment; and the rapidity of the influx
proved that the force of the water was
considerable. Fortunately this compartment did
not hold the boilers, or the fires would have
been immediately extinguished. Captain
Anderson ordered the engines to be stopped at
once, and one of the men went down to
ascertain the extent of the injury. Some minutes
afterwards they discovered the existence of a
large hole, of two yards in diameter, in the ship's
bottom.