Replying to a question Conseil asked me as to the time these colossal barriers took to be raised, I astonished him much by telling him that learned men reckoned it about the eighth of an inch in a hundred years.
Toward evening Clermont-Tonnerre was lost in the distance, and the route of the Nautilus was sensibly changed. After having crossed the tropic of Capricorn in 135° longitude, it sailed W. N. W., making again for the tropical zone. Although the summer sun was very strong, we did not suffer from the heat, for at fifteen or twenty fathoms below the surface the temperature did not rise above from ten to twelve degrees.
On December 15, we left to the east the bewitching group of the Societies and the graceful Tahiti, queen of the Pacific. I saw in the morning some miles to the windward, the elevated summits of the island. These waters furnished our table with excellent fish, mackerel, bonitos, and albicores, and some varieties of a sea-serpent called munirophis.
On the 25th of December the Nautilus sailed into the midst of the New Hebrides, discovered by Quiros in 1606, and that Bougainville explored in 1768, and to which Cook gave its present name in 1773. This group is composed principally of nine large islands, that form a band of 120 leagues N. N. E. to S. S. W., between 15° and 20° south latitude, and 164° and 168° longitude. We passed tolerably near to the island of Auron, that at noon looked like a mass of green woods surmounted by a peak of great height.
That day being Christmas Day, Ned Land seemed to regret sorely the non-celebration of "Christmas," the family fête of which Protestants are so fond. I had not seen Captain Nemo for a week when, on the morning of the 27th, he came into the large drawing-room, always seeming as if he had seen you five minutes before. I was busily tracing the route of the Nautilus on the planisphere. The captain came up to me, put his finger on one spot on the chart, and said this single word: "Vanikoro."
The effect was magical! It was the name of the islands on which La Perouse had been lost! I rose suddenly.
"The Nautilus has brought us to Vanikoro?" I asked.
"Yes, professor," said the captain.
