appeared from the
horizon, the Nautilus sank to between twenty and twenty-five yards, and
followed the American coast. Captain Nemo did not show himself. Until
the 3rd of April we did not quit the shores of Patagonia, sometimes
under the ocean, sometimes at the surface. The Nautilus passed beyond
the large estuary formed by the Uraguay. Its direction was northwards,
and followed the long windings of the coast of South America. We had
then made 1,600 miles since our embarkation in the seas of Japan.
About eleven o'clock in the morning the Tropic of Capricorn was crossed
on the thirty-seventh meridian, and we passed Cape Frio standing out to
sea. Captain Nemo, to Ned Land's great displeasure, did not like the
neighbourhood of the inhabited coasts of Brazil, for we went at a giddy
speed. Not a fish, not a bird of the swiftest kind could follow us,
and the natural curiosities of these seas escaped all observation.

This speed was kept up for several days, and in the evening of the 9th
of April we sighted the most westerly point of South America that forms
Cape San Roque. But then the Nautilus swerved again, and sought the
lowest depth of a submarine valley which is between this Cape and
Sierra Leone on the African coast. This valley bifurcates to the
parallel of the Antilles, and terminates at the mouth by the enormous
depression of 9,000 yards. In this place, the geological basin of the
ocean forms, as far as the Lesser Antilles, a cliff to three and a half
miles perpendicular in height, and, at the parallel of the Cape Verde
Islands, an other wall not less considerable, that encloses thus all
the sunk continent of the Atlantic. The bottom of this immense valley
is dotted with some mountains, that give to these submarine places a
picturesque aspect. I speak, moreover, from the manuscript charts that
were in the library of the Nautilus--charts evidently due to Captain
Nemo's hand, and made after his personal observations. For two days
the desert and deep waters were visited by means of the inclined
planes. The Nautilus was furnished with long diagonal broadsides which
carried it to all elevations. But on the 11th of April it rose
suddenly, and land appeared at the mouth of the Amazon River, a vast
estuary, the embouchure of which is so considerable that it freshens
the sea-water for the distance of several leagues.

The equator was crossed. Twenty miles to the west were the Guianas, a
French territory, on wh