rolled
back as we sailed under the water, and on each hand I could see a
thronging army of many-coloured aquatic creatures swimming around us,
attracted by our light, I was in an ecstasy of wonder and delight.

Then days would pass without Captain Nemo putting in an appearance, and
none of the crew were ever to be seen. But the Nautilus kept on its
journey, which, I learned, took us to the Torres Strait, the Papuan
coast, through the Red Sea, through a subterranean strait, under the
Isthmus of Suez, to the island of Santorin, the Cretan Archipelago, to
the South Pole, on whose sterile wastes Captain Nemo reared his black
flag with a white "N" upon it, and through the Gulf Stream.

Of the wonders of the deep, those amazing and beautiful specimens of
unknown life that passed before my vision on this strange journey, never
before seen by the eye of any naturalist, I cannot here enter into
particulars. But it must not be supposed, prisoners though we were, that
we never emerged from the interior of the Nautilus.

One of my first surprises, indeed, was to be invited by Captain Nemo to
accompany him on a hunting expedition in the marine forest that grew
about the base of the little island of Crespo, in the North Pacific
Ocean. We were told to make a hearty breakfast, as the jaunt would be a
long one. This we did, for we had soon become accustomed to the strange
food, every item of which was produced by the sea.

For our submarine excursion we were furnished with diving dresses of
seamless india-rubber, fitted on the shoulders with a reservoir of
stored air, its tubes opening into the great copper helmet. We even had
powerful air-guns and electric bullets, which proved weapons of deadly
precision. When inside our diving dresses, we could not move our feet on
account of the enormous leaden soles, so that we had to be pushed into a
compartment at the bottom of the vessel, and the iron doors secured
behind us. Water was then pumped in, and we could feel it rising around
us, until the compartment was full, when an outer door opened and we
stepped on to the floor of the sea.

For some considerable distance we walked along sands of the most perfect
smoothness, and then had to make our way over slimy rocks and
treacherous masses of seaweed, before we reached the fairy-like forest
under the sea, where all the branches of the marvellous growths ascended
perpendicularly.

It was indeed a rare experience for me, who had written "T