“Surely. An excellent longboat, light and unsinkable, which is used for excursions and fishing trips.” “But when you want to set out, don’t you have to return to the surface of the sea?” “By no means. The skiff is attached to the topside of the Nautilus’s hull and is set in a cavity expressly designed to receive it. It’s completely decked over, absolutely watertight, and held solidly in place by bolts. This ladder leads to a manhole cut into the Nautilus’s hull and corresponding to a comparable hole cut into the side of the skiff. I insert myself through this double opening into the longboat. My crew close up the hole belonging to the Nautilus; I close up the one belonging to the skiff, simply by screwing it into place. I undo the bolts holding the skiff to the submersible, and the longboat rises with prodigious speed to the surface of the sea. I then open the deck paneling, carefully closed until that point; I up mast and hoist sail—or I take out my oars—and I go for a spin.” “But how do you return to the ship?” “I don’t, Professor Aronnax; the Nautilus returns to me.” “At your command?” “At my command. An electric wire connects me to the ship. I fire off a telegram, and that’s that.” “Right,” I said, tipsy from all these wonders, “nothing to it!” After passing the well of the companionway that led to the platform, I saw a cabin 2 meters long in which Conseil and Ned Land, enraptured with their meal, were busy devouring it to the last crumb. Then a door opened into the galley, 3 meters long and located between the vessel’s huge storage lockers. There, even more powerful and obedient than gas, electricity did most of the cooking. Arriving under the stoves, wires transmitted to platinum griddles a heat that was distributed and sustained with perfect consistency. It also heated a distilling mechanism that, via evaporation, supplied excellent drinking water. Next to this galley was a bathroom, conveniently laid out, with faucets supplying hot or cold water at will. After the galley came the crew’s quarters, 5 meters long. But the door was closed and I couldn’t see its accommodations, which might have told me the number of men it took to operate the Nautilus. At the far end stood a fourth watertight bulkhead, separating the crew’s quarters from the engine room. A door opened, and I stood in the compartment where Captain Nemo, indisputably a world-class engineer, had set up his locomotive equipment. Brightly lit, the engine room measured at least 20 meters in length. It was divided, by function, into two parts: the first contained the cells for generating electricity, the second that mechanism transmitting movement to the propeller. Right off, I detected an odor permeating the compartment that was sui generis.* Captain Nemo noticed the negative impression it made on me. *Latin: “in a class by itself.” Ed.