Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/331

 of Neptune’s flocks—now the Isle of Scarpanto, situated between Rhodes and Crete—but I saw nothing but the granitic foundations from the windows of the saloon.

Next day, the 14th of February, I made up my mind to devote a few hours to the study of the fish of the Archipelago, but for some reason the panels remained closed.Upon taking the course of the Nautilus, I perceived that we were approaching Candia—the ancient Crete. When I had embarked on board the Abraham Lincoln, I had heard that the inhabitants of this island had revolted against the Turks, but how the insurrection had prospered since that time I was absolutely ignorant, and Captain Nemo could not, of course, give me any information on this point.

I made no allusion to it when in the evening I was alone with him in the saloon. Besides, he seemed to be taciturn and preoccupied. Then, contrary to his usual custom, he ordered the panels of the saloon to be opened, and he watched the water attentively from one or the other. What his purpose was in so doing, I could not divine, and I amused myself by watching the fish.

I remarked the gobies mentioned by Aristotle, and vulgarly called sea-loaches, which are chiefly found in the salt-water about the Delta of the Nile. Near these were a semi-phosphorescent bream, a sort of sparus which the Egyptians hold sacred, and the arrival of which in the Nile announces a rich overflow, and is celebrated by religious ceremonies. I also saw some cheilones, a bony fish with transparent scales, which are great devourers of marine plants, are most excellent to eat, and were much prized by the epicures of ancient Rome.

Another inhabitant of these seas attracted my attention, and renewed all my recollections of antiquity. This was the remora, which travels fixed upon the belly of the shark.