Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/459

 “And do you know,” I added, “what has happened since men have almost entirely destroyed this useful race? The grasses have putrified and poisoned the air, and that has given rise to yellow fever, which has laid waste beautiful districts. Poisonous vegetation multiplies in these tropical seas, and the evil is irresistibly developed from the mouth of the La Plata to Florida.”

And, if we can credit Toussenel, this plague is nothing at all to what will happen to our descendants when the seas become depopulated of whales and seals. Then, infested with cuttles, medusæ, and calmars, the waves will become vast hot-beds of infection, since they will no longer possess those “vast stomachs that God has commanded to scour the surface of the seas.”

But, without disputing this theory, the crew of the Nautilus caught half a dozen manatees. They did so to provision the ship with excellent meat, superior to beef or veal. The capture was not interesting. The manatees permitted themselves to be killed without resistance. Many thousand pounds weight of meat destined to be dried was stored on board.

This day a tremendous haul of fish increased the reserves of the Nautilus; the seas are so very rich. The net brought up a number of fish whose heads terminated in an oval plate with fleshy edges. These were echeneïdes of the third family, of the sub-brachian malacopterygians. This was the Echeneide osteocher, peculiar to those seas. When taken, the sailors put them in buckets filled with water.

When the fishing was over, the Nautilus approached the coast. A number of tortoises were sleeping on the surface, otherwise it would have been difficult to capture them, for the least noise awakens them, and their shells are proof against the harpoon. But the echeneide captured them