Impatience grew apace, when, on the 2nd of July, they learned that a
steamer of the line of San Francisco, from California to Shanghai,
had seen the animal three weeks before in the North Pacific Ocean.
The excitement caused by this news was extreme. The ship was revictualled
and well stocked with coal.
Three hours before the Abraham Lincoln left Brooklyn pier,
I received a letter worded as follows:
To M. ARONNAX, Professor in the Museum of Paris, Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York.
SIR,--If you will consent to join the Abraham Lincoln
in this expedition, the Government of the United States
will with pleasure see France represented in the enterprise.
Commander Farragut has a cabin at your disposal.
Very cordially yours, J.B. HOBSON, Secretary of Marine.
CHAPTER III
I FORM MY RESOLUTION
Three seconds before the arrival of J. B. Hobson's letter I no more thought
of pursuing the unicorn than of attempting the passage of the North Sea.
Three seconds after reading the letter of the honourable Secretary of Marine,
I felt that my true vocation, the sole end of my life, was to chase this
disturbing monster and purge it from the world.
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