ssible egress. Where was Captain Nemo taking us
to? I could not say. This, however, did not satisfy the Canadian, who
that day came to me asking where we were going.

"We are going where our Captain's fancy takes us, Master Ned."

"His fancy cannot take us far, then," said the Canadian. "The Persian
Gulf has no outlet: and, if we do go in, it will not be long before we
are out again."

"Very well, then, we will come out again, Master Land; and if, after
the Persian Gulf, the Nautilus would like to visit the Red Sea, the
Straits of Bab-el-mandeb are there to give us entrance."

"I need not tell you, sir," said Ned Land, "that the Red Sea is as much
closed as the Gulf, as the Isthmus of Suez is not yet cut; and, if it
was, a boat as mysterious as ours would not risk itself in a canal cut
with sluices. And again, the Red Sea is not the road to take us back
to Europe."

"But I never said we were going back to Europe."

"What do you suppose, then?"

"I suppose that, after visiting the curious coasts of Arabia and Egypt,
the Nautilus will go down the Indian Ocean again, perhaps cross the
Channel of Mozambique, perhaps off the Mascarenhas, so as to gain the
Cape of Good Hope."

"And once at the Cape of Good Hope?" asked the Canadian, with peculiar
emphasis.

"Well, we shall penetrate into that Atlantic which we do not yet know.
Ah! friend Ned, you are getting tired of this journey under the sea;
you are surfeited with the incessantly varying spectacle of submarine
wonders. For my part, I shall be sorry to see the end of a voyage
which it is given to so few men to make."

For four days, till the 3rd of February, the Nautilus scoured the Sea
of Oman, at various speeds and at various depths. It seemed to go at
random, as if hesitating as to which road it should follow, but we
never passed the Tropic of Cancer.

In quitting this sea we sighted Muscat for an instant, one of the most
important towns of the country of Oman. I admired its strange aspect,
surrounded by black rocks upon which its white houses and forts stood
in relief. I saw the rounded domes of its mosques, the elegant points
of its minarets, its fresh and verdant terraces. But it was only a
vision! The Nautilus soon sank under the waves of that part of the sea.

We passed along the Arabian coast of Mahrah and Hadramaut, for a
distance of six miles, its undulating line of mountains being
occasionally relieved by some ancient ruin. The 5th of