"We can remain no longer in this boiling water," said I to the Captain.
"It would not be prudent," replied the impassive Captain Nemo.
An order was given; the Nautilus tacked about and left
the furnace it could not brave with impunity. A quarter
of an hour after we were breathing fresh air on the surface.
The thought then struck me that, if Ned Land had chosen this part
of the sea for our flight, we should never have come alive out
of this sea of fire.
The next day, the 16th of February, we left the basin which,
between Rhodes and Alexandria, is reckoned about 1,500 fathoms
in depth, and the Nautilus, passing some distance from Cerigo,
quitted the Grecian Archipelago after having doubled Cape Matapan.
CHAPTER VII
THE MEDITERRANEAN IN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
The Mediterranean, the blue sea par excellence, "the great sea"
of the Hebrews, "the sea" of the Greeks, the "mare nostrum"
of the Romans, bordered by orange-trees, aloes, cacti, and sea-pines;
embalmed with the perfume of the myrtle, surrounded by rude mountains,
saturated with pure and transparent air, but incessantly worked
by underground fires; a perfect battlefield in which Neptune and Pluto
still dispute the empire of the world!
It is upon these banks, and on these waters, says Michelet, that man
is renewed in one of the most powerful climates of the globe.
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