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CHAPTER XXIII.

ÆGRI SOMNIA.

the following day, 10th January, the Nautilus resumed her course beneath the waves at a speed which surprised me, and which could not have been less than thirty-five miles an hour. The revolutions of her screw were too rapid to admit of being reckoned.

When I thought of this marvellous electric agency, which gave light, heat, and movement to the Nautilus, protected her from attack, and transformed it into an ark, into which no one could enter without running the risk of death by lightning, my admiration knew no bounds; the machine was worthy of the hand that made it.

We proceeded due west, and on the 11th of January we doubled Cape Wessel (situated in 135° E. long. and 10° N. lat.), which forms the eastern point of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The reefs were numerous, but easily distinguished, and shown upon the map with great accuracy. The Nautilus easily avoided the breakers of Money to larboard and the Victoria reefs to starboard, situated