Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 5.djvu/102

82 in the copper box which covered my head, thereby expending more air in vain words than was, perhaps, expedient.

Various kinds of iris, clusters of pure tuft-coral, prickly fungi, and anemones, formed a brilliant garden of flowers, whose festoons were waved by the gentle undulations caused by our walk. It was a real grief to me to crush under my feet the brilliant specimens of mollusks which strewed the ground by thousands. But we were bound to walk, so we went on, while above our heads waved shoals of medusæ whose umbrellas of opal or rose-pink, escalloped with a band of blue, sheltered us from the rays of the sun, and fiery pelagiæ, which in the darkness would have strewn our path with phosphorescent light.

All these wonders I saw in the space of a quarter of a mile, scarcely stopping, and following Captain Nemo, who beckoned me on by signs. Soon the nature of the soil changed; to the sandy plain succeeded an extent of slimy mud, which the Americans call "ooze," composed of equal parts of silicious and calcareous shells. We then traveled over a plain of seaweed of wild and luxuriant vegetation. This sward was of close texture, and soft to the feet, and rivaled the softest carpet woven by the hand of man. But while verdure was spread at our feet, it did not abandon our heads. A light network of marine plants, of that inexhaustible family of seaweeds of which more than two thousand kinds are known, grew on the surface of the water. I saw long ribbons of fucus floating, of most delicate foliage, and some rhodomeniæ palmatæ resembling the fan of a cactus. I noticed that the green plants kept nearer the top of the sea, while the red were at a greater depth, leaving to the black or brown hydrophytes the care of forming gardens and parterres in the remote beds of the ocean.

We had quitted the Nautilus about an hour and a half. It was near noon; I knew by the perpendicularity of the sun's rays, which were no longer refracted. The magical colors disappeared by degrees, and the shades of emerald and sapphire were effaced. We walked with a regular step, which rang upon the ground with astonishing intensity; the slightest noise was transmitted with a quickness to which the ear is unaccustomed on the earth; indeed, water is a better conductor of sound than air, in the ratio of four