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, cactus, pines, perfumed with myrtle, enclosed by rude mountains, enveloped with a pure and transparent atmosphere, but ever worked by the earth’s fires, is the regular battlefield of Neptune and Pluto disputing for the empire of the world. It is here on its banks as on its waters, says Michelet, that man acquires new vigour, in one of the most wonderful climates in the world!
But beautiful though it be, I could only indulge in a very hasty glance. The personal experience of Captain Nemo failed me here, for that extraordinary personage did not appear once during the passage through, which we made at full speed. I estimated the distance that the Nautilus ran under the water was about 600 leagues, and she performed it in eight-and-forty hours. We left the Grecian Archipelago on the 16th of February, and on the 18th, at sunrise, we had passed the Strait of Gibraltar.
