m, where breakfast was served.

"M. Aronnax," said the Captain, "pray, share my breakfast without
ceremony; we will chat as we eat. For, though I promised you a walk in
the forest, I did not undertake to find hotels there. So breakfast as
a man who will most likely not have his dinner till very late."

I did honour to the repast. It was composed of several kinds of fish,
and slices of sea-cucumber, and different sorts of seaweed. Our drink
consisted of pure water, to which the Captain added some drops of a
fermented liquor, extracted by the Kamschatcha method from a seaweed
known under the name of Rhodomenia palmata. Captain Nemo ate at first
without saying a word. Then he began:

"Sir, when I proposed to you to hunt in my submarine forest of Crespo,
you evidently thought me mad. Sir, you should never judge lightly of
any man."

"But Captain, believe me----"

"Be kind enough to listen, and you will then see whether you have any
cause to accuse me of folly and contradiction."

"I listen."

"You know as well as I do, Professor, that man can live under water,
providing he carries with him a sufficient supply of breathable air.
In submarine works, the workman, clad in an impervious dress, with his
head in a metal helmet, receives air from above by means of forcing
pumps and regulators."

"That is a diving apparatus," said I.

"Just so, but under these conditions the man is not at liberty; he is
attached to the pump which sends him air through an india-rubber tube,
and if we were obliged to be thus held to the Nautilus, we could not go
far."

"And the means of getting free?" I asked.

"It is to use the Rouquayrol apparatus, invented by two of your own
countrymen, which I have brought to perfection for my own use, and
which will allow you to risk yourself under these new physiological
conditions without any organ whatever suffering. It consists of a
reservoir of thick iron plates, in which I store the air under a
pressure of fifty atmospheres. This reservoir is fixed on the back by
means of braces, like a soldier's knapsack. Its upper part forms a box
in which the air is kept by means of a bellows, and therefore cannot
escape unless at its normal tension. In the Rouquayrol apparatus such
as we use, two india rubber pipes leave this box and join a sort of
tent which holds the nose and mouth; one is to introduce fresh air, the
other to let out the foul, and the tongue closes one or the other
according