The Nautilus would do long, diagonal dives that took us to every level.
But on April 11 it rose suddenly, and the shore reappeared at the mouth of the Amazon River, a huge estuary whose outflow is so considerable, it desalts the sea over an area of several leagues.
We cut the Equator.
Twenty miles to the west lay Guiana, French territory where we could easily have taken refuge.
But the wind was blowing a strong gust, and the furious billows would not allow us to face them in a mere skiff.
No doubt Ned Land understood this because he said nothing to me.
For my part, I made no allusion to his escape plans because I didn't want to push him into an attempt that was certain to misfire.
I was readily compensated for this delay by fascinating research.
During those two days of April 11–12, the Nautilus didn't leave the surface of the sea, and its trawl brought up a simply miraculous catch of zoophytes, fish, and reptiles.
Some zoophytes were dredged up by the chain of our trawl.
Most were lovely sea anemone belonging to the family Actinidia, including among other species, the Phyctalis protexta, native to this part of the ocean: a small cylindrical trunk adorned with vertical lines, mottled with red spots, and crowned by a wondrous blossoming of tentacles.
As for mollusks, they consisted of exhibits I had already observed: turret snails, olive shells of the "tent olive" species with neatly intersecting lines and russet spots standing out sharply against a flesh–colored background, fanciful spider conchs that looked like petrified scorpions, transparent glass snails, argonauts, some highly edible cuttlefish, and certain species of squid that the naturalists of antiquity classified with the flying fish, which are used chiefly as bait for catching cod.
As for the fish in these waterways, I noted various species that I hadn't yet had the opportunity to study.
Among cartilaginous fish: some brook lamprey, a type of eel fifteen inches long, head greenish, fins violet, back bluish gray, belly a silvery brown strewn with bright spots, iris of the eye encircled in gold, unusual animals that the Amazon's current must have swept out to sea because their natural habitat is fresh water; sting rays, the snout pointed, the tail long, slender, and armed with an extensive jagged sting; small one–meter sharks with gray and whitish hides, their teeth arranged in several backward–curving rows, fish commonly known by the name carpet shark; batfish, a sort of reddish isosceles triangle half a meter long, whose pectoral fins are attached by fleshy extensions that make these fish look like bats, although an appendage made of horn, located near the nostrils, earns them the nickname of sea unicorns; lastly, a couple species of triggerfish, the cucuyo whose stippled flanks glitter with a sparkling gold color, and the bright purple leatherjacket whose hues glisten like a pigeon's throat.
I'll finish up this catalog, a little dry but quite accurate, with the series of bony fish I observed: eels belonging to the genus Apteronotus whose snow–white snout is very blunt, the body painted a handsome black and armed with a very long, slender, fleshy whip; long sardines from the genus Odontognathus, like three–decimeter pike, shining with a bright silver glow; Guaranian mackerel furnished with two anal fins; black–tinted rudderfish that you catch by using torches, fish measuring two meters and boasting white, firm, plump meat that, when fresh, tastes like eel, when dried, like smoked salmon; semired wrasse sporting scales only at the bases of their dorsal and anal fins; grunts on which gold and silver mingle their luster with that of ruby and topaz; yellow–tailed gilthead whose flesh is extremely dainty and whose phosphorescent properties give them away in the midst of the waters; porgies tinted orange, with slender tongues; croakers with gold caudal fins; black surgeonfish; four–eyed fish from Surinam, etc.
This "et cetera" won't keep me from mentioning one more fish that Conseil, with good reason, will long remember.
One of our nets had hauled up a type of very flat ray that weighed some twenty kilograms; with its tail cut off, it would have formed a perfect disk.
It was white underneath and reddish on top, with big round spots of deep blue encircled in black, its hide quite smooth and ending in a double–lobed fin.
Laid out on the platform, it kept struggling with convulsive movements, trying to turn over, making such efforts that its final lunge was about to flip it into the sea.
But Conseil, being very possessive of his fish, rushed at it, and before I could stop him, he seized it with both hands.
Instantly there he was, thrown on his back, legs in the air, his body half paralyzed, and yelling:
"Oh, sir, sir!
Will you help me!"
For once in his life, the poor lad didn't address me "in the third person."
The Canadian and I sat him up; we massaged his contracted arms, and when he regained his five senses, that eternal classifier mumbled in a broken voice:
"Class of cartilaginous fish, order Chondropterygia with fixed gills, suborder Selacia, family Rajiiforma, genus electric ray."
"Yes, my friend," I answered, "it was an electric ray that put you in this deplorable state."
"Oh, Master can trust me on this," Conseil shot back.
"I'll be revenged on that animal!"
"How?"
"I'll eat it."
Which he did that same evening, but strictly as retaliation.
Because, frankly, it tasted like leather.
Poor Conseil had assaulted an electric ray of the most dangerous species, the cumana.
Living in a conducting medium such as water, this bizarre animal can electrocute other fish from several meters away, so great is the power of its electric organ, an organ whose two chief surfaces measure at least twenty–seven square feet.
During the course of the next day, April 12, the Nautilus drew near the coast of Dutch Guiana, by the mouth of the Maroni River.
There several groups of sea cows were living in family units.
These were manatees, which belong to the order Sirenia, like the dugong and Steller's sea cow.
Harmless and unaggressive, these fine animals were six to seven meters long and must have weighed at least 4,000 kilograms each.
I told Ned Land and Conseil that farseeing nature had given these mammals a major role to play.
In essence, manatees, like seals, are designed to graze the underwater prairies, destroying the clusters of weeds that obstruct the mouths of tropical rivers.
"And do you know," I added, "what happened since man has almost completely wiped out these beneficial races?
Rotting weeds have poisoned the air, and this poisoned air causes the yellow fever that devastates these wonderful countries.
This toxic vegetation has increased beneath the seas of the Torrid Zone, so the disease spreads unchecked from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to Florida!"
And if Professor Toussenel is correct, this plague is nothing compared to the scourge that will strike our descendants once the seas are depopulated of whales and seals.
By then, crowded with jellyfish, squid, and other devilfish, the oceans will have become huge centers of infection, because their waves will no longer possess "these huge stomachs that God has entrusted with scouring the surface of the sea."
Meanwhile, without scorning these theories, the Nautilus's crew captured half a dozen manatees.
In essence, it was an issue of stocking the larder with excellent red meat, even better than beef or veal.
Their hunting was not a fascinating sport.
The manatees let themselves be struck down without offering any resistance.