on the 10th of March, a smaller island, called Reka, showed
itself near Nea Kamenni, and since then these three have joined
together, forming but one and the same island."

"And the canal in which we are at this moment?" I asked.

"Here it is," replied Captain Nemo, showing me a map of the
Archipelago. "You see, I have marked the new islands."

I returned to the glass. The Nautilus was no longer moving, the heat
was becoming unbearable. The sea, which till now had been white, was
red, owing to the presence of salts of iron. In spite of the ship's
being hermetically sealed, an insupportable smell of sulphur filled the
saloon, and the brilliancy of the electricity was entirely extinguished
by bright scarlet flames. I was in a bath, I was choking, I was
broiled.

"We can remain no longer in this boiling water," said I to the Captain.

"It would not be prudent," replied the impassive Captain Nemo.

An order was given; the Nautilus tacked about and left the furnace it
could not brave with impunity. A quarter of an hour after we were
breathing fresh air on the surface. The thought then struck me that,
if Ned Land had chosen this part of the sea for our flight, we should
never have come alive out of this sea of fire.

The next day, the 16th of February, we left the basin which, between
Rhodes and Alexandria, is reckoned about 1,500 fathoms in depth, and
the Nautilus, passing some distance from Cerigo, quitted the Grecian
Archipelago after having doubled Cape Matapan.

CHAPTER VII

THE MEDITERRANEAN IN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS

The Mediterranean, the blue sea par excellence, "the great sea" of the
Hebrews, "the sea" of the Greeks, the "mare nostrum" of the Romans,
bordered by orange-trees, aloes, cacti, and sea-pines; embalmed with
the perfume of the myrtle, surrounded by rude mountains, saturated with
pure and transparent air, but incessantly worked by underground fires;
a perfect battlefield in which Neptune and Pluto still dispute the
empire of the world!

It is upon these banks, and on these waters, says Michelet, that man is
renewed in one of the most powerful climates of the globe. But,
beautiful as it was, I could only take a rapid glance at the basin
whose superficial area is two million of square yards. Even Captain
Nemo's knowledge was lost to me, for this puzzling person did not
appear once during our passage at full speed. I estimated the course
which the Nautilus took under the waves of the se