Where was I?
Where was I?
I had to find out at all cost, I wanted to speak, I wanted to rip off the copper sphere imprisoning my head.
But Captain Nemo came over and stopped me with a gesture.
Then, picking up a piece of chalky stone, he advanced to a black basaltic rock and scrawled this one word:
ATLANTIS
What lightning flashed through my mind!
Atlantis, that ancient land of Meropis mentioned by the historian Theopompus; Plato's Atlantis; the continent whose very existence has been denied by such philosophers and scientists as Origen, Porphyry, Iamblichus, d'Anville, Malte–Brun, and Humboldt, who entered its disappearance in the ledger of myths and folk tales; the country whose reality has nevertheless been accepted by such other thinkers as Posidonius, Pliny, Ammianus Marcellinus, Tertullian, Engel, Scherer, Tournefort, Buffon, and d'Avezac; I had this land right under my eyes, furnishing its own unimpeachable evidence of the catastrophe that had overtaken it!
So this was the submerged region that had existed outside Europe, Asia, and Libya, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, home of those powerful Atlantean people against whom ancient Greece had waged its earliest wars!
The writer whose narratives record the lofty deeds of those heroic times is Plato himself.
His dialogues Tim?us and Critias were drafted with the poet and legislator Solon as their inspiration, as it were.
One day Solon was conversing with some elderly wise men in the Egyptian capital of Sais, a town already 8,000 years of age, as documented by the annals engraved on the sacred walls of its temples.
One of these elders related the history of another town 1,000 years older still.
This original city of Athens, ninety centuries old, had been invaded and partly destroyed by the Atlanteans.
These Atlanteans, he said, resided on an immense continent greater than Africa and Asia combined, taking in an area that lay between latitude 12° and 40° north.
Their dominion extended even to Egypt.
They tried to enforce their rule as far as Greece, but they had to retreat before the indomitable resistance of the Hellenic people.
Centuries passed.
A cataclysm occurred—floods, earthquakes.
A single night and day were enough to obliterate this Atlantis, whose highest peaks (Madeira, the Azores, the Canaries, the Cape Verde Islands) still emerge above the waves.
These were the historical memories that Captain Nemo's scrawl sent rushing through my mind.
Thus, led by the strangest of fates, I was treading underfoot one of the mountains of that continent!
My hands were touching ruins many thousands of years old, contemporary with prehistoric times!
I was walking in the very place where contemporaries of early man had walked!
My heavy soles were crushing the skeletons of animals from the age of fable, animals that used to take cover in the shade of these trees now turned to stone!
Oh, why was I so short of time!
I would have gone down the steep slopes of this mountain, crossed this entire immense continent, which surely connects Africa with America, and visited its great prehistoric cities.
Under my eyes there perhaps lay the warlike town of Makhimos or the pious village of Eusebes, whose gigantic inhabitants lived for whole centuries and had the strength to raise blocks of stone that still withstood the action of the waters.
One day perhaps, some volcanic phenomenon will bring these sunken ruins back to the surface of the waves!
Numerous underwater volcanoes have been sighted in this part of the ocean, and many ships have felt terrific tremors when passing over these turbulent depths.
A few have heard hollow noises that announced some struggle of the elements far below, others have hauled in volcanic ash hurled above the waves.
As far as the equator this whole seafloor is still under construction by plutonic forces.
And in some remote epoch, built up by volcanic disgorgings and successive layers of lava, who knows whether the peaks of these fire–belching mountains may reappear above the surface of the Atlantic!
As I mused in this way, trying to establish in my memory every detail of this impressive landscape, Captain Nemo was leaning his elbows on a moss–covered monument, motionless as if petrified in some mute trance.
Was he dreaming of those lost generations, asking them for the secret of human destiny?
Was it here that this strange man came to revive himself, basking in historical memories, reliving that bygone life, he who had no desire for our modern one?
I would have given anything to know his thoughts, to share them, understand them!
We stayed in this place an entire hour, contemplating its vast plains in the lava's glow, which sometimes took on a startling intensity.
Inner boilings sent quick shivers running through the mountain's crust.
Noises from deep underneath, clearly transmitted by the liquid medium, reverberated with majestic amplitude.
Just then the moon appeared for an instant through the watery mass, casting a few pale rays over this submerged continent.
It was only a fleeting glimmer, but its effect was indescribable.
The captain stood up and took one last look at these immense plains; then his hand signaled me to follow him.
We went swiftly down the mountain.
Once past the petrified forest, I could see the Nautilus's beacon twinkling like a star.
The captain walked straight toward it, and we were back on board just as the first glimmers of dawn were whitening the surface of the ocean.
Chapter 10 The Underwater Coalfields
THE NEXT DAY, February 20, I overslept.
I was so exhausted from the night before, I didn't get up until eleven o'clock.
I dressed quickly.