ceful molluscs moved backwards by means of their locomotive
tube, through which they propelled the water already drawn in. Of
their eight tentacles, six were elongated, and stretched out floating
on the water, whilst the other two, rolled up flat, were spread to the
wing like a light sail. I saw their spiral-shaped and fluted shells,
which Cuvier justly compares to an elegant skiff. A boat indeed! It
bears the creature which secretes it without its adhering to it.

For nearly an hour the Nautilus floated in the midst of this shoal of
molluscs. Then I know not what sudden fright they took. But as if at
a signal every sail was furled, the arms folded, the body drawn in, the
shells turned over, changing their centre of gravity, and the whole
fleet disappeared under the waves. Never did the ships of a squadron
manoeuvre with more unity.

At that moment night fell suddenly, and the reeds, scarcely raised by
the breeze, lay peaceably under the sides of the Nautilus.

The next day, 26th of January, we cut the equator at the eighty-second
meridian and entered the northern hemisphere. During the day a
formidable troop of sharks accompanied us, terrible creatures, which
multiply in these seas and make them very dangerous. They were
"cestracio philippi" sharks, with brown backs and whitish bellies,
armed with eleven rows of teeth--eyed sharks--their throat being marked
with a large black spot surrounded with white like an eye. There were
also some Isabella sharks, with rounded snouts marked with dark spots.
These powerful creatures often hurled themselves at the windows of the
saloon with such violence as to make us feel very insecure. At such
times Ned Land was no longer master of himself. He wanted to go to the
surface and harpoon the monsters, particularly certain smooth-hound
sharks, whose mouth is studded with teeth like a mosaic; and large
tiger-sharks nearly six yards long, the last named of which seemed to
excite him more particularly. But the Nautilus, accelerating her
speed, easily left the most rapid of them behind.

The 27th of January, at the entrance of the vast Bay of Bengal, we met
repeatedly a forbidding spectacle, dead bodies floating on the surface
of the water. They were the dead of the Indian villages, carried by
the Ganges to the level of the sea, and which the vultures, the only
undertakers of the country, had not been able to devour. But the
sharks did not fail to help them at their funera