The Nautilus,diving again under the water,approached the coast,which was only some few miles off.From the glass windows in the drawing-room,Isaw long seaweeds and gigantic fuci and varech,of which the open polar sea contains so many specimens,with their sharp polished filaments;they measured about 300yards in length--real cables,thicker than one's thumb;and,having great tenacity,they are often used as ropes for vessels.Another weed known as velp,with leaves four feet long,buried in the coral concretions,hung at the bottom.It served as nest and food for myriads of crustacea and molluscs,crabs,and cuttlefish.
There seals and otters had splendid repasts,eating the flesh of fish with sea-vegetables,according to the English fashion.
Over this fertile and luxuriant ground the Nautilus passed with great rapidity.Towards evening it approached the Falkland group,the rough summits of which Irecognised the following day.
The depth of the sea was moderate.On the shores our nets brought in beautiful specimens of sea weed,and particularly a certain fucus,the roots of which were filled with the best mussels in the world.
Geese and ducks fell by dozens on the platform,and soon took their places in the pantry on board.
When the last heights of the Falklands had disappeared from the horizon,the Nautilus sank to between twenty and twenty-five yards,and followed the American coast.
Captain Nemo did not show himself.Until the 3rd of April we did not quit the shores of Patagonia,sometimes under the ocean,sometimes at the surface.The Nautilus passed beyond the large estuary formed by the Uraguay.Its direction was northwards,and followed the long windings of the coast of South America.
We had then made 1,600miles since our embarkation in the seas of Japan.About eleven o'clock in the morning the Tropic of Capricorn was crossed on the thirty-seventh meridian,and we passed Cape Frio standing out to sea.Captain Nemo,to Ned Land's great displeasure,did not like the neighbourhood of the inhabited coasts of Brazil,for we went at a giddy speed.
Not a fish,not a bird of the swiftest kind could follow us,and the natural curiosities of these seas escaped all observation.
This speed was kept up for several days,and in the evening of the 9th of April we sighted the most westerly point of South America that forms Cape San Roque.But then the Nautilus swerved again,and sought the lowest depth of a submarine valley which is between this Cape and Sierra Leone on the African coast.
This valley bifurcates to the parallel of the Antilles,and terminates at the mouth by the enormous depression of 9,000yards.
In this place,the geological basin of the ocean forms,as far as the Lesser Antilles,a cliff to three and a half miles perpendicular in height,and,at the parallel of the Cape Verde Islands,an other wall not less considerable,that encloses thus all the sunk continent of the Atlantic.
The bottom of this immense valley is dotted with some mountains,that give to these submarine places a picturesque aspect.
Ispeak,moreover,from the manuscript charts that were in the library of the Nautilus--charts evidently due to Captain Nemo's hand,and made after his personal observations.For two days the desert and deep waters were visited by means of the inclined planes.
The Nautilus was furnished with long diagonal broadsides which carried it to all elevations.But on the 11th of April it rose suddenly,and land appeared at the mouth of the Amazon River,a vast estuary,the embouchure of which is so considerable that it freshens the sea-water for the distance of several leagues.
