said, "we continue to advance at our present rate, we shall
have traveled at least thirty leagues in twenty-four hours. With a mere
raft this is an almost incredible velocity."

I certainly was surprised, and without making any reply went forward
upon the raft. Already the northern shore was fading away on the edge of
the horizon. The two shores appeared to separate more and more, leaving
a wide and open space for our departure. Before me I could see nothing
but the vast and apparently limitless sea--upon which we floated--the
only living objects in sight.

Huge and dark clouds cast their grey shadows below--shadows which seemed
to crush that colorless and sullen water by their weight. Anything more
suggestive of gloom and of regions of nether darkness I never beheld.
Silvery rays of electric light, reflected here and there upon some small
spots of water, brought up luminous sparkles in the long wake of our
cumbrous bark. Presently we were wholly out of sight of land; not a
vestige could be seen, nor any indication of where we were going. So
still and motionless did we seem without any distant point to fix our
eyes on that but for the phosphoric light at the wake of the raft I
should have fancied that we were still and motionless.

But I knew that we were advancing at a very rapid rate.

About twelve o'clock in the day, vast collections of seaweed were
discovered surrounding us on all sides. I was aware of the extraordinary
vegetative power of these plants, which have been known to creep along
the bottom of the great ocean, and stop the advance of large ships. But
never were seaweeds ever seen, so gigantic and wonderful as those of the
Central Sea. I could well imagine how, seen at a distance, tossing and
heaving on the summit of the billows, the long lines of algae have been
taken for living things, and thus have been fertile sources of the
belief in sea serpents.

Our raft swept past great specimens of fucus or seawrack, from three to
four thousand feet in length, immense, incredibly long, looking like
snakes that stretched out far beyond our horizon. It afforded me great
amusement to gaze on their variegated ribbon-like endless lengths. Hour
after hour passed without our coming to the termination of these
floating weeds. If my astonishment increased, my patience was well-nigh
exhausted.

What natural force could possibly have produced such abnormal and
extraordinary plants? What must have been the aspect of the