Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/344

                           THE MEDITERRANEAN.           85

they were at anchor in a foreign harbour, and were waiting the signal to depart. When the Nautilus passed between them and wrapped them in the electric light, it seemed as if these ships were going to salute the flag and hoist their numbers. But no ! nothing but the silence of death reigned in this scene of a great catastrophe.

I noticed that towards Gibraltar these sinister traces became more numerous. The coasts of Europe and Africa get closer here, and the meetings were more frequent. I perceived numerous iron hulls, remains of steamers, some careened over, some upright, like some formidable animals. One of these vessels presented a terrible spectacle. How many had gone down with her, who of all those on board had survived to tell the tale, or did the waves still guard this terrible secret? I do not know why, but it occurred to me that this was the Atlas, which had disappeared about twenty years ago, and of which no one had ever since heard. Ah ! what fearful history might be written about these depths, this vast mortuary of the Mediterranean, where so much wealth has been lost, and where so many victims have found death !

But the Nautilus, indifferent to this, continued her rapid course amid all this ruin. On the 18th of February, about 3 A.M., she entered the Straits of Gibraltar.

Here two currents exist ; the upper long known, which takes the water from the Ocean into the Mediterranean, the other in the opposite direction of which reason has proved the existence. In fact, the bulk of the mediter- ranean waters, incessantly increased by the Atlantic, and by the rivers it receives, would rise each year to the level of the sea, for its evaporation is not sufficient to estab- lish the equilibrium. Now, it is not so, and existence of an under-current is only natural, and this current empties