Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/164

 witty naturalist, “in which the animal kingdom flowers, and the vegetable kingdom does not flower at all.”

Amongst the various shrubs, as large as in the trees of temperate zones, and under their damp shade, were massed, actual thickets of living flowers, hedges composed of zoophytes, upon which bloomed the striped and furrowed “encandrines,” the yellow cariophylliæ, with their translucent tentacles, the gauzy tufts of “zoanthanes,” and, to complete the illusion, the flying-fish darted between the branches like humming-birds, while the yellow lepisacanthi, with a bristling mouth and pointed scales, dactylopteri, and monocentrides rose under our feet like so many snipe.

In about an hour Captain Nemo signed to us to halt. I was not sorry for this, and we lay down under a canopy of alariæs, with long, arrow-like prongs.

The rest was most welcome to me. All we wanted was the charm of conversation. But it was impossible to speak. I put my great headpiece close to Conseil. I could perceive his eyes gleaming with happiness, and, as a token of his satisfaction, he moved himself in his heavy dress in a most comical manner.

After these four hours, I was astonished that I did not feel more hungry. Why I did not feel hungry, I do not know; but then, on the other hand, like all divers, I began to feel very sleepy. So my eyes soon closed behind the thick glass, and I fell into a deep sleep, which the action of walking had hitherto resisted. Captain Nemo and his robust companion, stretched in this liquid crystal medium, set us the example.

I do not know how long I slept, but when I woke, it appeared as if the sun were sinking towards the west.