海底两万里 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea 1

CHAPTER 1


A Runaway Reef




THE YEAR 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained and
downright inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has
forgotten. Without getting into those rumors that upset civilians in
the seaports and deranged the public mind even far inland, it must be
said that professional seamen were especially alarmed. Traders,
shipowners, captains of vessels, skippers, and master mariners from
Europe and America, naval officers from every country, and at their
heels the various national governments on these two continents, were
all extremely disturbed by the business.


In essence, over a period of time several ships had encountered “an
enormous thing” at sea, a long spindle-shaped object, sometimes giving
off a phosphorescent glow, infinitely bigger and faster than any
whale.


The relevant data on this apparition, as recorded in various logbooks,
agreed pretty closely as to the structure of the object or creature in
question, its unprecedented speed of movement, its startling
locomotive power, and the unique vitality with which it seemed to be
gifted. If it was a cetacean, it exceeded in bulk any whale previously
classified by science. No naturalist, neither Cuvier nor Lacépède,
neither Professor Dumeril nor Professor de Quatrefages, would have
accepted the existence of such a monster sight unseen—specifically,
unseen by their own scientific eyes.


Striking an average of observations taken at different times—rejecting
those timid estimates that gave the object a length of 200 feet, and
ignoring those exaggerated views that saw it as a mile wide and three
long—you could still assert that this phenomenal creature greatly
exceeded the dimensions of anything then known to ichthyologists, if
it existed at all.


Now then, it did exist, this was an undeniable fact; and since the
human mind dotes on objects of wonder, you can understand the
worldwide excitement caused by this unearthly apparition. As for
relegating it to the realm of fiction, that charge had to be dropped.


In essence, on July 20, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, from the
Calcutta & Burnach Steam Navigation Co., encountered this moving mass
five miles off the eastern shores of Australia.


Captain Baker at first thought he was in the presence of an unknown
reef; he was even about to fix its exact position when two waterspouts
shot out of this inexplicable object and sprang hissing into the air
some 150 feet. So, unless this reef was subject to the intermittent
eruptions of a geyser, the Governor Higginson had fair and honest
dealings with some aquatic mammal, until then unknown, that could
spurt from its blowholes waterspouts mixed with air and steam.


Similar events were likewise observed in Pacific seas, on July 23 of
the same year, by the Christopher Columbus from the West India &
Pacific Steam Navigation Co. Consequently, this extraordinary cetacean
could transfer itself from one locality to another with startling
swiftness, since within an interval of just three days, the Governor
Higginson and the Christopher Columbus had observed it at two
positions on the charts separated by a distance of more than 700
nautical leagues.


Fifteen days later and 2,000 leagues farther, the Helvetia from the
Compagnie Nationale and the Shannon from the Royal Mail line, running
on opposite tacks in that part of the Atlantic lying between the
United States and Europe, respectively signaled each other that the
monster had been sighted in latitude 42 degrees 15’ north and
longitude 60 degrees 35’ west of the meridian of Greenwich. From their
simultaneous observations, they were able to estimate the mammal’s
minimum length at more than 350 English feet;* this was because both
the Shannon and the Helvetia were of smaller dimensions, although each
measured 100 meters stem to stern. Now then, the biggest whales, those
rorqual whales that frequent the waterways of the Aleutian Islands,
have never exceeded a length of 56 meters—if they reach even that.


*Author’s Note: About 106 meters. An English foot is only 30.4
 centimeters.


One after another, reports arrived that would profoundly affect public
opinion: new observations taken by the transatlantic liner Pereire,
the Inman line’s Etna running afoul of the monster, an official report
drawn up by officers on the French frigate Normandy, dead-earnest
reckonings obtained by the general staff of Commodore Fitz-James
aboard the Lord Clyde. In lighthearted countries, people joked about
this phenomenon, but such serious, practical countries as England,
America, and Germany were deeply concerned.


In every big city the monster was the latest rage; they sang about it
in the coffee houses, they ridiculed it in the newspapers, they
dramatized it in the theaters. The tabloids found it a fine
opportunity for hatching all sorts of hoaxes. In those newspapers
short of copy, you saw the reappearance of every gigantic imaginary
creature, from “Moby Dick,” that dreadful white whale from the High
Arctic regions, to the stupendous kraken whose tentacles could entwine
a 500-ton craft and drag it into the ocean depths. They even reprinted
reports from ancient times: the views of Aristotle and Pliny accepting
the existence of such monsters, then the Norwegian stories of Bishop
Pontoppidan, the narratives of Paul Egede, and finally the reports of
Captain Harrington—whose good faith is above suspicion—in which he
claims he saw, while aboard the Castilian in 1857, one of those
enormous serpents that, until then, had frequented only the seas of
France’s old extremist newspaper, The Constitutionalist.


An interminable debate then broke out between believers and skeptics
in the scholarly societies and scientific journals. The “monster
question” inflamed all minds. During this memorable campaign,
journalists making a profession of science battled with those making a
profession of wit, spilling waves of ink and some of them even two or
three drops of blood, since they went from sea serpents to the most
offensive personal remarks.


For six months the war seesawed. With inexhaustible zest, the popular
press took potshots at feature articles from the Geographic Institute
of Brazil, the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin, the British
Association, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., at
discussions in The Indian Archipelago, in Cosmos published by Father
Moigno, in Petermann’s Mittheilungen,* and at scientific chronicles in
the great French and foreign newspapers. When the monster’s detractors
cited a saying by the botanist Linnaeus that “nature doesn’t make
leaps,” witty writers in the popular periodicals parodied it,
maintaining in essence that “nature doesn’t make lunatics,” and
ordering their contemporaries never to give the lie to nature by
believing in krakens, sea serpents, “Moby Dicks,” and other all-out
efforts from drunken seamen. Finally, in a much-feared satirical
journal, an article by its most popular columnist finished off the
monster for good, spurning it in the style of Hippolytus repulsing the
amorous advances of his stepmother Phaedra, and giving the creature
its quietus amid a universal burst of laughter. Wit had defeated
science.


*German: “Bulletin.” Ed.


During the first months of the year 1867, the question seemed to be
buried, and it didn’t seem due for resurrection, when new facts were
brought to the public’s attention. But now it was no longer an issue
of a scientific problem to be solved, but a quite real and serious
danger to be avoided. The question took an entirely new turn. The
monster again became an islet, rock, or reef, but a runaway reef,
unfixed and elusive.


On March 5, 1867, the Moravian from the Montreal Ocean Co., lying
during the night in latitude 27 degrees 30’ and longitude 72 degrees
15’, ran its starboard quarter afoul of a rock marked on no charts of
these waterways. Under the combined efforts of wind and 400-horsepower
steam, it was traveling at a speed of thirteen knots. Without the high
quality of its hull, the Moravian would surely have split open from
this collision and gone down together with those 237 passengers it was
bringing back from Canada.


This accident happened around five o’clock in the morning, just as day
was beginning to break. The officers on watch rushed to the craft’s
stern. They examined the ocean with the most scrupulous care. They saw
nothing except a strong eddy breaking three cable lengths out, as if
those sheets of water had been violently churned. The site’s exact
bearings were taken, and the Moravian continued on course apparently
undamaged. Had it run afoul of an underwater rock or the wreckage of
some enormous derelict ship? They were unable to say. But when they
examined its undersides in the service yard, they discovered that part
of its keel had been smashed.


This occurrence, extremely serious in itself, might perhaps have been
forgotten like so many others, if three weeks later it hadn’t been
reenacted under identical conditions. Only, thanks to the nationality
of the ship victimized by this new ramming, and thanks to the
reputation of the company to which this ship belonged, the event
caused an immense uproar.


No one is unaware of the name of that famous English shipowner,
Cunard. In 1840 this shrewd industrialist founded a postal service
between Liverpool and Halifax, featuring three wooden ships with
400-horsepower paddle wheels and a burden of 1,162 metric tons. Eight
years later, the company’s assets were increased by four
650-horsepower ships at 1,820 metric tons, and in two more years, by
two other vessels of still greater power and tonnage. In 1853 the
Cunard Co., whose mail-carrying charter had just been renewed,
successively added to its assets the Arabia, the Persia, the China,
the Scotia, the Java, and the Russia, all ships of top speed and,
after the Great Eastern, the biggest ever to plow the seas. So in 1867
this company owned twelve ships, eight with paddle wheels and four
with propellers.


If I give these highly condensed details, it is so everyone can fully
understand the importance of this maritime transportation company,
known the world over for its shrewd management. No transoceanic
navigational undertaking has been conducted with more ability, no
business dealings have been crowned with greater success. In
twenty-six years Cunard ships have made 2,000 Atlantic crossings
without so much as a voyage canceled, a delay recorded, a man, a
craft, or even a letter lost. Accordingly, despite strong competition
from France, passengers still choose the Cunard line in preference to
all others, as can be seen in a recent survey of official
documents. Given this, no one will be astonished at the uproar
provoked by this accident involving one of its finest steamers.


On April 13, 1867, with a smooth sea and a moderate breeze, the Scotia
lay in longitude 15 degrees 12’ and latitude 45 degrees 37’. It was
traveling at a speed of 13.43 knots under the thrust of its
1,000-horsepower engines. Its paddle wheels were churning the sea with
perfect steadiness. It was then drawing 6.7 meters of water and
displacing 6,624 cubic meters.


At 4:17 in the afternoon, during a high tea for passengers gathered in
the main lounge, a collision occurred, scarcely noticeable on the
whole, affecting the Scotia’s hull in that quarter a little astern of
its port paddle wheel.


The Scotia hadn’t run afoul of something, it had been fouled, and by a
cutting or perforating instrument rather than a blunt one. This
encounter seemed so minor that nobody on board would have been
disturbed by it, had it not been for the shouts of crewmen in the
hold, who climbed on deck yelling:


“We’re sinking! We’re sinking!”


At first the passengers were quite frightened, but Captain Anderson
hastened to reassure them. In fact, there could be no immediate
danger. Divided into seven compartments by watertight bulkheads, the
Scotia could brave any leak with impunity.


Captain Anderson immediately made his way into the hold. He discovered
that the fifth compartment had been invaded by the sea, and the speed
of this invasion proved that the leak was considerable. Fortunately
this compartment didn’t contain the boilers, because their furnaces
would have been abruptly extinguished.


Captain Anderson called an immediate halt, and one of his sailors
dived down to assess the damage. Within moments they had located a
hole two meters in width on the steamer’s underside. Such a leak could
not be patched, and with its paddle wheels half swamped, the Scotia
had no choice but to continue its voyage. By then it lay 300 miles
from Cape Clear, and after three days of delay that filled Liverpool
with acute anxiety, it entered the company docks.


The engineers then proceeded to inspect the Scotia, which had been put
in dry dock. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Two and a half meters
below its waterline, there gaped a symmetrical gash in the shape of an
isosceles triangle. This breach in the sheet iron was so perfectly
formed, no punch could have done a cleaner job of it. Consequently, it
must have been produced by a perforating tool of uncommon
toughness—plus, after being launched with prodigious power and then
piercing four centimeters of sheet iron, this tool had needed to
withdraw itself by a backward motion truly inexplicable.


This was the last straw, and it resulted in arousing public passions
all over again. Indeed, from this moment on, any maritime casualty
without an established cause was charged to the monster’s
account. This outrageous animal had to shoulder responsibility for all
derelict vessels, whose numbers are unfortunately considerable, since
out of those 3,000 ships whose losses are recorded annually at the
marine insurance bureau, the figure for steam or sailing ships
supposedly lost with all hands, in the absence of any news, amounts to
at least 200!


Now then, justly or unjustly, it was the “monster” who stood accused
of their disappearance; and since, thanks to it, travel between the
various continents had become more and more dangerous, the public
spoke up and demanded straight out that, at all cost, the seas be
purged of this fearsome cetacean.