Captain Farragut was a good seaman, worthy of the frigate he commanded.
His vessel and he were one. He was the soul of it. On the question of
the cetacean there was no doubt in his mind, and he would not allow the
existence of the animal to be disputed on board. He believed in it, as
certain good women believe in the leviathan—by faith, not by reason.
The monster did exist, and he had sworn to rid the seas of it. He was a
kind of Knight of Rhodes, a second Dieudonné de Gozon, going to meet
the serpent which desolated the island. Either Captain Farragut would
kill the narwhal, or the narwhal would kill the captain. There was no
third course.
The officers on board shared the opinion of their chief. They were ever
chatting, discussing, and calculating the various chances of a meeting,
watching narrowly the vast surface of the ocean. More than one took up
his quarters voluntarily in the cross-trees, who would have cursed such
a berth under any other circumstances. As long as the sun described its
daily course, the rigging was crowded with sailors, whose feet were
burnt to such an extent by the heat of the deck as to render it
unbearable; still the _Abraham Lincoln_ had not yet breasted the
suspected waters of the Pacific. As to the ship's company, they desired
nothing better than to meet the unicorn, to harpoon it, hoist it on
board, and despatch it. They watched the sea with eager attention.
Besides, Captain Farragut had spoken of a certain sum of two thousand
dollars, set apart for whoever should first sight the monster, were he
cabin-boy, common seaman, or officer.
I leave you to judge how eyes were used on board the _Abraham Lincoln_.
For my own part I was not behind the others, and left to no one my
share of daily observations. The frigate might have been called the
_Argus_, for a hundred reasons. Only one amongst us, Conseil, seemed to
protest by his indifference against the question which so interested us
all, and seemed to be out of keeping with the general enthusiasm on
board.
I have said that Captain Farragut had carefully provided his ship with
every apparatus for catching the gigantic cetacean. No whaler had ever
been better armed. We possessed every known engine, from the harpoon
thrown by the hand to the barbed arrows of the blunderbuss, and the
explosive balls of the duck-gun. On the forecastle lay the perfection
of a breech-loading gun, very thick at the breech, and very narrow in
the bore, the model of which had been in the Exhibition of 1867. This
precious weapon of American origin could throw with ease a conical
projectile of nine pounds to a mean distance of ten miles.
Thus the _Abraham Lincoln_ wanted for no means of destruction; and,
what was better still, she had on board Ned Land, the prince of
harpooners.
Ned Land was a Canadian, with an uncommon quickness of hand, and who
knew no equal in his dangerous occupation. Skill, coolness, audacity,
and cunning he possessed in a superior degree, and it must be a cunning
whale or a singularly "cute" cachalot to escape the stroke of his
harpoon.
Ned Land was about forty years of age; he was a tall man (more than six
feet high), strongly built, grave and taciturn, occasionally violent,
and very passionate when contradicted. His person attracted attention,
but above all the boldness of his look, which gave a singular
expression to his face.
Who calls himself Canadian calls himself French; and, little
communicative as Ned Land was, I must admit that he took a certain
liking for me. My nationality drew him to me, no doubt. It was an
opportunity for him to talk, and for me to hear, that old language of
Rabelais, which is still in use in some Canadian provinces. The
harpooner's family was originally from Quebec, and was already a tribe
of hardy fishermen when this town belonged to France.
Little by little, Ned Land acquired a taste for chatting, and I loved
to hear the recital of his adventures in the polar seas. He related his
fishing, and his combats, with natural poetry of expression; his
recital took the form of an epic poem, and I seemed to be listening to
a Canadian Homer singing the Iliad of the regions of the North.
I am portraying this hardy companion as I really knew him. We are old
friends now, united in that unchangeable friendship which is born and
cemented amidst extreme dangers. Ah, brave Ned! I ask no more than to
live a hundred years longer, that I may have more time to dwell the
longer on your memory.
Now, what was Ned Land's opinion upon the question of the marine
monster? I must admit that he did not believe in the unicorn, and was
the only one on board who did not share that universal conviction. He
even avoided the subject, which I one day thought it my duty to press
upon him. One magnificent evening, the 30th of July—that is to say,
three weeks after our departure—the frigate was abreast of Cape Blanc,
thirty miles to leeward of the coast of Patagonia. We had crossed the
tropic of Capricorn, and the Straits of Magellan opened less than seven
hundred miles to the south. Before eight days were over the _Abraham
Lincoln_ would be ploughing the waters of the Pacific.
Seated on the poop, Ned Land and I were chatting of one thing and
another as we looked at this mysterious sea, whose great depths had up
to this time been inaccessible to the eye of man. I naturally led up
the conversation to the giant unicorn, and examined the various chances
of success or failure of the expedition. But, seeing that Ned Land let
me speak without saying too much himself, I pressed him more closely.
"Well, Ned," said I, "is it possible that you are not convinced of the
existence of this cetacean that we are following? Have you any
particular reason for being so incredulous?"
The harpooner looked at me fixedly for some moments before answering,
struck his broad forehead with his hand (a habit of his), as if to
collect himself, and said at last, "Perhaps I have, M. Aronnax."
"But, Ned, you, a whaler by profession, familiarised with all the great
marine mammalia—you, whose imagination might easily accept the
hypothesis of enormous cetaceans, _you_ ought to be the last to doubt
under such circumstances!"
"That is just what deceives you, Professor," replied Ned. "That the
vulgar should believe in extraordinary comets traversing space, and in
the existence of antediluvian monsters in the heart of the globe, may
well be; but neither astronomer nor geologist believes in such
chimeras. As a whaler I have followed many a cetacean, harpooned a
great number, and killed several; but, however strong or well-armed
they may have been, neither their tails nor their weapons would have
been able even to scratch the iron plates of a steamer."
"But, Ned, they tell of ships which the teeth of the narwhal have
pierced through and through."
"Wooden ships—that is possible," replied the Canadian, "but I have
never seen it done; and, until further proof, I deny that whales,
cetaceans, or sea-unicorns could ever produce the effect you describe."
"Well, Ned, I repeat it with a conviction resting on the logic of
facts. I believe in the existence of a mammal powerfully organised,
belonging to the branch of vertebrata, like the whales, the cachalots,
or the dolphins, and furnished with a horn of defence of great
penetrating power."
"Hum!" said the harpooner, shaking his head with the air of a man who
would not be convinced.
"Notice one thing, my worthy Canadian," I resumed. "If such an animal
is in existence, if it inhabits the depths of the ocean, if it
frequents the strata lying miles below the surface of the water, it
must necessarily possess an organisation the strength of which would
defy all comparison."
"And why this powerful organisation?" demanded Ned.
"Because it requires incalculable strength to keep one's self in these
strata and resist their pressure. Listen to me. Let us admit that the
pressure of the atmosphere is represented by the weight of a column of
water thirty-two feet high. In reality the column of water would be
shorter, as we are speaking of sea water, the density of which is
greater than that of fresh water. Very well, when you dive, Ned, as
many times thirty-two feet of water as there are above you, so many
times does your body bear a pressure equal to that of the atmosphere,
that is to say, 15 lbs. for each square inch of its surface. It
follows, then, that at 320 feet this pressure = that of 10 atmospheres,
of 100 atmospheres at 3200 feet, and of 1000 atmospheres at 32,000
feet, that is, about 6 miles; which is equivalent to saying that if you
could attain this depth in the ocean, each square three-eighths of an
inch of the surface of your body would bear a pressure of 5600 lbs. Ah!
my brave Ned, do you know how many square inches you carry on the
surface of your body?"
"I have no idea, M. Aronnax."
"About 6500; and, as in reality the atmospheric pressure is about 15
lbs. to the square inch, your 6500 square inches bear at this moment a
pressure of 97,500 lbs."
"Without my perceiving it?"
"Without your perceiving it. And if you are not crushed by such a
pressure, it is because the air penetrates the interior of your body
with equal pressure. Hence perfect equilibrium between the interior and
exterior pressure, which thus neutralise each other, and which allows
you to bear it without inconvenience. But in the water it is another
thing."
"Yes, I understand," replied Ned, becoming more attentive; "because the
water surrounds me, but does not penetrate."
"Precisely, Ned: so that at 32 feet beneath the surface of the sea you
would undergo a pressure of 97,500 lbs.; at 320 feet, ten times that
pressure; at 3200 feet, a hundred times that pressure; lastly, at
32,000 feet, a thousand times that pressure would be 97,500,000
lbs.—that is to say, that you would be flattened as if you had been
drawn from the plates of a hydraulic machine!"
"The devil!" exclaimed Ned.
"Very well, my worthy harpooner, if some vertebrate, several hundred
yards long, and large in proportion, can maintain itself in such
depths—of those whose surface is represented by millions of square
inches, that is by tens of millions of pounds, we must estimate the
pressure they undergo. Consider, then, what must be the resistance of
their bony structure, and the strength of their organisation to
withstand such pressure!"
"Why!" exclaimed Ned Land, "they must be made of iron plates eight
inches thick, like the armoured frigates."
"As you say, Ned. And think what destruction such a mass would cause,
if hurled with the speed of an express train against the hull of a
vessel."
"Yes—certainly—perhaps," replied the Canadian, shaken by these figures,
but not yet willing to give in.
"Well, have I convinced you?"
"You have convinced me of one thing, sir, which is that, if such
animals do exist at the bottom of the seas, they must necessarily be as
strong as you say."
"But if they do not exist, mine obstinate harpooner, how explain the
accident to the _Scotia?_"