CHAPTER IV

NED LAND


Captain Farragut was a good seaman, worthy of the frigate he commanded.

His vessel and he were one. He was the soul of it. On the question

of the monster there was no doubt in his mind, and he would not allow

the existence of the animal to be disputed on board. He believed in it,

as certain good women believe in the leviathan--by faith, not by reason.

The monster did exist, and he had sworn to rid the seas of it. Either Captain

Farragut would kill the narwhal, or the narwhal would kill the captain.

There was no third course.



The officers on board shared the opinion of their chief.

They were ever chatting, discussing, and calculating the various

chances of a meeting, watching narrowly the vast surface of the ocean.

More than one took up his quarters voluntarily in the cross- trees,

who would have cursed such a berth under any other circumstances.

As long as the sun described its daily course, the rigging was

crowded with sailors, whose feet were burnt to such an extent by

the heat of the deck as to render it unbearable; still the Abraham

Lincoln had not yet breasted the suspected waters of the Pacific.

As to the ship's company, they desired nothing better than to meet

the unicorn, to harpoon it, hoist it on board, and despatch it.

They watched the sea with eager attention.



Besides, Captain Farragut had spoken of a certain sum of two thousand dollars,

set apart for whoever should first sight the monster, were he cabin-boy,

common seaman, or officer.



I leave you to judge how eyes were used on board the Abraham Lincoln.



For my own part I was not behind the others, and, left to no one my share

of daily observations. The frigate might have been called the Argus,

for a hundred reasons. Only one amongst us, Conseil, seemed to protest

by his indifference against the question which so interested us all,

and seemed to be out of keeping with the general enthusiasm on board.



I have said that Captain Farragut had carefully provided his

ship with every apparatus for catching the gigantic cetacean.

No whaler had ever been better armed. We possessed every

known engine, from the harpoon thrown by the hand to the barbed

arrows of the blunderbuss, and the explosive balls of the duck- gun.

On the forecastle lay the perfection of a breech-loading gun,

very thick at the breech, and very narrow in the bore,

the model of which had been in the Exhibition of 1867.

This precious weapon of American origin could throw with ease

a conical projectile of nine pounds to a mean distance of ten miles.



Thus the Abraham Lincoln wanted for no means of destruction; and, what was

better still she had on board Ned Land, the prince of harpooners.



Ned Land was a Canadian, with an uncommon quickness of hand, and who knew

no equal in his dangerous occupation. Skill, coolness, audacity, and cunning

he possessed in a superior degree, and it must be a cunning whale to escape

the stroke of his harpoon.



Ned Land was about forty years of age; he was a tall man

(more than six feet high), strongly built, grave and taciturn,

occasionally violent, and very passionate when contradicted.

His person attracted attention, but above all the boldness

of his look, which gave a singular expression to his face.



Who calls himself Canadian calls himself French; and, little communicative

as Ned Land was, I must admit that he took a certain liking for me.

My nationality drew him to me, no doubt. It was an opportunity for him

to talk, and for me to hear, that old language of Rabelais, which is still

in use in some Canadian provinces. The harpooner's family was originally

from Quebec, and was already a tribe of hardy fishermen when this town

belonged to France.



Little by little, Ned Land acquired a taste for chatting, and I

loved to hear the recital of his adventures in the polar seas.

He related his fishing, and his combats, with natural poetry

of expression; his recital took the form of an epic poem,

and I seemed to be listening to a Canadian Homer singing the Iliad

of the regions of the North.



I am portraying this hardy companion as I really knew him.

We are old friends now, united in that unchangeable friendship

which is born and cemented amidst extreme dangers. Ah, brave Ned!

I ask no more than to live a hundred years longer, that I may have more

time to dwell the longer on your memory.



Now, what was Ned Land's opinion upon the question of the marine monster?

I must admit that he did not believe in the unicorn, and was

the only one on board who did not share that universal conviction.

He even avoided the subject, which I one day thought it my duty

to press upon him. One magnificent evening, the 30th July (that is

to say, three weeks after our departure), the frigate was abreast

of Cape Blanc, thirty miles to leeward of the coast of Patagonia.

We had crossed the tropic of Capricorn, and the Straits of Magellan

opened less than seven hundred miles to the south. Before eight

days were over the Abraham Lincoln would be ploughing the waters

of the Pacific.



Seated on the poop, Ned Land and I were chatting of one thing

and another as we looked at this mysterious sea, whose great

depths had up to this time been inaccessible to the eye of man.

I naturally led up the conversation to the giant unicorn, and examined

the various chances of success or failure of the expedition.

But, seeing that Ned Land let me speak without saying too much himself,

I pressed him more closely.



"Well, Ned," said I, "is it possible that you are not convinced

of the existence of this cetacean that we are following?

Have you any particular reason for being so incredulous?"



The harpooner looked at me fixedly for some moments

before answering, struck his broad forehead with his hand

(a habit of his), as if to collect himself, and said at last,

"Perhaps I have, Mr. Aronnax."



"But, Ned, you, a whaler by profession, familiarised with all

the great marine mammalia--YOU ought to be the last to doubt

under such circumstances!"



"That is just what deceives you, Professor," replied Ned.

"As a whaler I have followed many a cetacean, harpooned a great number,

and killed several; but, however strong or well-armed they may

have been, neither their tails nor their weapons would have been

able even to scratch the iron plates of a steamer."



"But, Ned, they tell of ships which the teeth of the narwhal

have pierced through and through."



"Wooden ships--that is possible," replied the Canadian,

"but I have never seen it done; and, until further proof,

I deny that whales, cetaceans, or sea-unicorns could ever produce

the effect you describe."



"Well, Ned, I repeat it with a conviction resting on the logic of facts.

I believe in the existence of a mammal power fully organised, belonging to

the branch of vertebrata, like the whales, the cachalots, or the dolphins,

and furnished with a horn of defence of great penetrating power."



"Hum!" said the harpooner, shaking his head with the air of a man

who would not be convinced.



"Notice one thing, my worthy Canadian," I resumed.

"If such an animal is in existence, if it inhabits the depths

of the ocean, if it frequents the strata lying miles below

the surface of the water, it must necessarily possess an

organisation the strength of which would defy all comparison."



"And why this powerful organisation?" demanded Ned.



"Because it requires incalculable strength to keep one's self

in these strata and resist their pressure. Listen to me.

Let us admit that the pressure of the atmosphere is represented

by the weight of a column of water thirty-two feet high.


In reality the column of water would be shorter, as we are

speaking of sea water, the density of which is greater than

that of fresh water. Very well, when you dive, Ned, as many

times 32 feet of water as there are above you, so many times

does your body bear a pressure equal to that of the atmosphere,

that is to say, 15 lb. for each square inch of its surface.

It follows, then, that at 320 feet this pressure equals

that of 10 atmospheres, of 100 atmospheres at 3,200 feet,

and of 1,000 atmospheres at 32,000 feet, that is, about 6 miles;

which is equivalent to saying that if you could attain this

depth in the ocean, each square three-eighths of an inch

of the surface of your body would bear a pressure of 5,600 lb.

Ah! my brave Ned, do you know how many square inches you carry on

the surface of your body?"



"I have no idea, Mr. Aronnax."



"About 6,500; and as in reality the atmospheric pressure is about 15 lb.

to the square inch, your 6,500 square inches bear at this moment a pressure

of 97,500 lb."



"Without my perceiving it?"



"Without your perceiving it. And if you are not crushed by

such a pressure, it is because the air penetrates the interior

of your body with equal pressure. Hence perfect equilibrium

between the interior and exterior pressure, which thus neutralise

each other, and which allows you to bear it without inconvenience.

But in the water it is another thing."



"Yes, I understand," replied Ned, becoming more attentive;

"because the water surrounds me, but does not penetrate."



"Precisely, Ned: so that at 32 feet beneath the surface of the sea you would

undergo a pressure of 97,500 lb.; at 320 feet, ten times that pressure;

at 3,200 feet, a hundred times that pressure; lastly, at 32,000 feet,

a thousand times that pressure would be 97,500,000 lb.--that is to say,

that you would be flattened as if you had been drawn from the plates of

a hydraulic machine!"



"The devil!" exclaimed Ned.



"Very well, my worthy harpooner, if some vertebrate, several hundred

yards long, and large in proportion, can maintain itself in such depths--

of those whose surface is represented by millions of square inches, that is

by tens of millions of pounds, we must estimate the pressure they undergo.

Consider, then, what must be the resistance of their bony structure,

and the strength of their organisation to withstand such pressure!"



"Why!" exclaimed Ned Land, "they must be made of iron plates

eight inches thick, like the armoured frigates."



"As you say, Ned. And think what destruction such a mass would cause,

if hurled with the speed of an express train against the hull of a vessel."



"Yes--certainly--perhaps," replied the Canadian, shaken by these figures,

but not yet willing to give in.



"Well, have I convinced you?"



"You have convinced me of one thing, sir, which is that,

if such animals do exist at the bottom of the seas, they must

necessarily be as strong as you say."



"But if they do not exist, mine obstinate harpooner, how explain

the accident to the Scotia?"

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