01 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
海底两万里

Chapter 1 The Giant Whale

In the year 1866, a new boat came back from sea every week with the same story. “A giant whale, a hundred metres long, came near our boat,” the men said. The story was in the newspapers and a lot of people talked about it.

“It wasn't a whale,” scientists said. “A big blue whale is only twenty-seven metres long. Perhaps it was a coral reef.”

“But a coral reef can't send water fifty metres into the air.” the seamen answered.“This animal can.”

It went near one boat in Australian waters. Three days later, it was seven hundred leagues away in the Pacific.

“Whales can't swim seven hundred leagues in three days,” the scientists said.“Perhaps it's a submarine.”

But only a country with a lot of money can build a submarine, and the same answer came back from every country: “We haven't got a submarine!”

One day a British boat, the Scotia, was in the Atlantic. Suddenly, water started to come into the boat. The captain looked for the problem. There was a big hole in the boat. “The Scotia is very strong,” he said. “I don't understand this hole. Is it the work of the giant whale?”

To me, a French scientist, the stories of the whale were, of course, very interesting. In 1867 I visited New York, and newspapermen there asked me questions.

“You're famous for your book about sea animals, Mr. Aronnax,” they said. “What do you think about this giant whale?”

“The sea's very big,” I answered, “and it's the home of many thousands of animals. Scientists don't know about all of them. But one small whale has a long spear on its head. Perhaps there's a giant whale with a spear, too. And perhaps this animal's spear can make a hole in a boat.”

A week later, a letter arrived at my hotel. It said:

You know, of course, about the giant whale. One day this whale is going to kill people. But we are going to kill it first. Please come and look for it with us. Our boat, the Abraham Lincoln, is waiting for you.

I wanted to see this interesting animal. I went quickly to the Abraham Lincoln with my Belgian servant, Conseil.

From New York, we went down the Atlantic coast of North and South America and into the Pacific. Week after week,all day and all night, the seamen watched the water. Conseil and I watched with them. But we didn't see the giant whale.

Only one man on the boat didn't watch the water. His name was Ned Land. Ned was a big, strong Canadian, about forty years old, and he was a very good whaler.

“You're never going to find this whale,” he said. “It was near Japan in May, but it's now July. Where is it today?The Mediterranean? The Arctic?Who knows?”

For five long months we looked for the whale. Then the men started to say, “Perhaps Ned is right.”

“When can we go home?” they asked their captain.

But suddenly, one day, Ned said, “There it is! I can see the giant whale!”

The animal moved very quickly in the water. It came near our boat.

“We don't want a hole in the Abraham Lincoln,” the captain said.“Let's move away.”

But our boat was slow. We watched the whale. “It's going to hit us!” we said. But it didn't. It went under the boat, not into it.

All day we went after the whale, but it stayed in front of us.

“We're never going to kill this animal,” the men said. “It's playing games with us.”

But at night the whale didn't move. “Perhaps it's sleeping,” Ned Land said. “Let's get near. Be very quiet!”

Suddenly, water from the whale's back went up into the air and rained down on our boat. Then I was in the sea.