Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World, Verne [children's books read aloud .txt] 📗

me how many men are on board? Ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred?”

“I’m unable to answer you, Mr. Land. And trust me on this: for the time being, get rid of these notions of taking over the Nautilus or escaping from it. This boat is a masterpiece of modern technology, and I’d be sorry to have missed it! Many people would welcome the circumstances that have been handed us, just to walk in the midst of these wonders. So keep calm, and let’s see what’s happening around us.”

“See!” the harpooner exclaimed. “There’s nothing to see, nothing we’ll ever see from this sheet-iron prison! We’re simply running around blindfolded—”

Ned Land was just pronouncing these last words when we were suddenly plunged into darkness, utter darkness. The ceiling lights went out so quickly, my eyes literally ached, just as if we had experienced the opposite sensation of going from the deepest gloom to the brightest sunlight.

We stood stock-still, not knowing what surprise was waiting for us, whether pleasant or unpleasant. But a sliding sound became audible. You could tell that some panels were shifting over the Nautilus’s sides.

“It’s the beginning of the end!” Ned Land said.

“. . . order Hydromedusa,” Conseil muttered.

Suddenly, through two oblong openings, daylight appeared on both sides of the lounge. The liquid masses came into view, brightly lit by the ship’s electric outpourings. We were separated from the sea by two panes of glass. Initially I shuddered at the thought that these fragile partitions could break; but strong copper bands secured them, giving them nearly infinite resistance.

The sea was clearly visible for a one-mile radius around the Nautilus. What a sight! What pen could describe it? Who could portray the effects of this light through these translucent sheets of water, the subtlety of its progressive shadings into the ocean’s upper and lower strata?

The transparency of salt water has long been recognized. Its clarity is believed to exceed that of spring water. The mineral and organic substances it holds in suspension actually increase its translucency. In certain parts of the Caribbean Sea, you can see the sandy bottom with startling distinctness as deep as 145 meters down, and the penetrating power of the sun’s rays seems to give out only at a depth of 300 meters. But in this fluid setting traveled by the Nautilus, our electric glow was being generated in the very heart of the waves. It was no longer illuminated water, it was liquid light.

If we accept the hypotheses of the microbiologist Ehrenberg—who believes that these underwater depths are lit up by phosphorescent organisms—nature has certainly saved one of her most prodigious sights for residents of the sea, and I could judge for myself from the thousandfold play of the light. On both sides I had windows opening over these unexplored depths. The darkness in the lounge enhanced the brightness outside, and we stared as if this clear glass were the window of an immense aquarium.

The Nautilus seemed to be standing still. This was due to the lack of landmarks. But streaks of water, parted by the ship’s spur, sometimes threaded before our eyes with extraordinary speed.

In wonderment, we leaned on our elbows before these show windows, and our stunned silence remained unbroken until Conseil said:

“You wanted to see something, Ned my friend; well, now you have something to see!”

“How unusual!” the Canadian put in, setting aside his tantrums and getaway schemes while submitting to this irresistible allure. “A man would go an even greater distance just to stare at such a sight!”

“Ah!” I exclaimed. “I see our captain’s way of life! He’s found himself a separate world that saves its most astonishing wonders just for him!”

“But where are the fish?” the Canadian ventured to observe. “I don’t see any fish!”

“Why would you care, Ned my friend?” Conseil replied. “Since you have no knowledge of them.”

“Me? A fisherman!” Ned Land exclaimed.

And on this subject a dispute arose between the two friends, since both were knowledgeable about fish, but from totally different standpoints.

Everyone knows that fish make up the fourth and last class in the vertebrate branch. They have been quite aptly defined as: “cold-blooded vertebrates with a double circulatory system, breathing through gills, and designed to live in water.” They consist of two distinct series: the series of bony fish, in other words, those whose spines have vertebrae made of bone; and cartilaginous fish, in other words, those whose spines have vertebrae made of cartilage.

Possibly the Canadian was familiar with this distinction, but Conseil knew far more about it; and since he and Ned were now fast friends, he just had to show off. So he told the harpooner:

“Ned my friend, you’re a slayer of fish, a highly skilled fisherman. You’ve caught a large number of these fascinating animals. But I’ll bet you don’t know how they’re classified.”

“Sure I do,” the harpooner replied in all seriousness. “They’re classified into fish we eat and fish we don’t eat!”

“Spoken like a true glutton,” Conseil replied. “But tell me, are you familiar with the differences between bony fish and cartilaginous fish?”

“Just maybe, Conseil.”

“And how about the subdivisions of these two large classes?”

“I haven’t the foggiest notion,” the Canadian replied.

“All right, listen and learn, Ned my friend! Bony fish are subdivided into six orders. Primo, the acanthopterygians, whose upper jaw is fully formed and free-moving, and whose gills take the shape of a comb. This order consists of fifteen families, in other words, three-quarters of all known fish. Example: the common perch.”

“Pretty fair eating,” Ned Land replied.

“Secundo,” Conseil went on, “the abdominals, whose pelvic fins hang under the abdomen to the rear of the pectorals but aren’t attached to the shoulder bone, an order that’s divided into five families and makes up the great majority of freshwater fish. Examples: carp, pike.”

“Ugh!” the Canadian put in with distinct scorn. “You can keep the freshwater fish!”

“Tertio,” Conseil said, “the subbrachians, whose pelvic fins are attached under the pectorals and hang directly from the shoulder bone. This order contains four families. Examples: flatfish such as sole, turbot, dab, plaice, brill, etc.”

“Excellent, really excellent!” the harpooner exclaimed, interested in fish only from an edible viewpoint.

“Quarto,” Conseil went on, unabashed, “the apods, with long bodies that lack pelvic fins and are covered by a heavy, often glutinous skin, an order consisting of only one family. Examples: common eels and electric eels.”

“So-so, just so-so!” Ned Land replied.

“Quinto,” Conseil said, “the lophobranchians, which have fully formed, free-moving jaws but whose gills consist of little tufts arranged in pairs along their gill arches. This order includes only one family. Examples: seahorses and dragonfish.”

“Bad, very bad!” the harpooner replied.

“Sexto and last,” Conseil said, “the plectognaths, whose maxillary bone is firmly attached to the side of the intermaxillary that forms the jaw, and whose palate arch is locked to the skull by sutures that render the jaw immovable, an order lacking true pelvic fins and which consists of two families. Examples: puffers and moonfish.”

“They’re an insult to a frying pan!” the Canadian exclaimed.

“Are you grasping all this, Ned my friend?” asked the scholarly Conseil.

“Not a lick of it, Conseil my friend,” the harpooner replied. “But keep going, because you fill me with fascination.”

“As for cartilaginous fish,” Conseil went on unflappably, “they consist of only three orders.”

“Good news,” Ned put in.

“Primo, the cyclostomes, whose jaws are fused into a flexible ring and whose gill openings are simply a large number of holes, an order consisting of only one family. Example: the lamprey.”

“An acquired taste,” Ned Land replied.

“Secundo, the selacians, with gills resembling those of the cyclostomes but whose lower jaw is free-moving. This order, which is the most important in the class, consists of two families. Examples: the ray and the shark.”

“What!” Ned Land exclaimed. “Rays and man-eaters in the same order? Well, Conseil my friend, on behalf of the rays, I wouldn’t advise you to put them in the same fish tank!”

“Tertio,” Conseil replied, “The sturionians, whose gill opening is the usual single slit adorned with a gill cover, an order consisting of four genera. Example: the sturgeon.”

“Ah, Conseil my friend, you saved the best for last, in my opinion anyhow! And that’s all of ’em?”

“Yes, my gallant Ned,” Conseil replied. “And note well, even when one has grasped all this, one still knows next to nothing, because these families are subdivided into genera, subgenera, species, varieties—”

“All right, Conseil my friend,” the harpooner said, leaning toward the glass panel, “here come a couple of your varieties now!”

“Yes! Fish!” Conseil exclaimed. “One would think he was in front of an aquarium!”

“No,” I replied, “because an aquarium is nothing more than a cage, and these fish are as free as birds in the air!”

“Well, Conseil my friend, identify them! Start naming them!” Ned Land exclaimed.

“Me?” Conseil replied. “I’m unable to! That’s my employer’s bailiwick!”

And in truth, although the fine lad was a classifying maniac, he was no naturalist, and I doubt that he could tell a bonito from a tuna. In short, he was the exact opposite of the Canadian, who knew nothing about classification but could instantly put a name to any fish.

“A triggerfish,” I said.

“It’s a Chinese triggerfish,” Ned Land replied.

“Genus Balistes, family Scleroderma, order Plectognatha,” Conseil muttered.

Assuredly, Ned and Conseil in combination added up to one outstanding naturalist.

The Canadian was not mistaken. Cavorting around the Nautilus was a school of triggerfish with flat bodies, grainy skins, armed with stings on their dorsal fins, and with four prickly rows of quills quivering on both sides of their tails. Nothing could have been more wonderful than the skin covering them: white underneath, gray above, with spots of gold sparkling in the dark eddies of the waves. Around them, rays were undulating like sheets flapping in the wind, and among these I spotted, much to my glee, a Chinese ray, yellowish on its topside, a dainty pink on its belly, and armed with three stings behind its eyes; a rare species whose very existence was still doubted in Lacépède’s day, since that pioneering classifier of fish had seen one only in a portfolio of Japanese drawings.

For two hours a whole aquatic army escorted the Nautilus. In the midst of their leaping and cavorting, while they competed with each other in beauty, radiance, and speed, I could distinguish some green wrasse, bewhiskered mullet marked with pairs of black lines, white gobies from the genus Eleotris with curved caudal fins and violet spots on the back, wonderful Japanese mackerel from the genus Scomber with blue bodies and silver heads, glittering azure goldfish whose name by itself gives their full description, several varieties of porgy or gilthead (some banded gilthead with fins variously blue and yellow, some with horizontal heraldic bars and enhanced by a black strip around their caudal area, some with color zones and elegantly corseted in their six waistbands), trumpetfish with flutelike beaks that looked like genuine seafaring woodcocks and were sometimes a meter long, Japanese salamanders, serpentine moray eels from the genus Echidna that were six feet long with sharp little eyes and a huge mouth bristling with teeth; etc.

Our wonderment stayed at an all-time fever pitch. Our exclamations were endless. Ned identified the fish, Conseil classified them, and as for me, I was in ecstasy over the verve of their movements and the beauty of their forms. Never before had I been given the chance to glimpse these animals alive and at large in their native element.

Given such a complete collection from the seas of Japan and China, I won’t mention every variety that passed before our dazzled eyes. More numerous than birds in the air, these fish raced right up to us, no doubt attracted by the brilliant glow of our electric beacon.

Suddenly daylight appeared in the lounge. The sheet-iron panels slid shut. The magical vision disappeared. But for a good while I kept dreaming away, until the moment my eyes focused on the instruments hanging on the wall. The compass still showed our heading as east-northeast, the pressure gauge indicated a pressure of five atmospheres (corresponding to a depth