"Jules Verne - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

ink during this memorable campaign, some even drawing blood; for from the
sea-serpent they came to direct personalities.

During the first months of the year 1867 the question seemed buried,
never to revive, when new facts were brought before the public. It was then
no longer a scientific problem to be solved, but a real danger seriously to
be avoided. The question took quite another shape. The monster became a
small island, a rock, a reef, but a reef of indefinite and shifting
proportions.

On the 5th of March, 1867, the Moravian, of the Montreal Ocean
Company, finding herself during the night in 27° 30' lat. and 72° 15'
long., struck on her starboard quarter a rock, marked in no chart for that
part of the sea. Under the combined efforts of the wind and its four
hundred horse- power, it was going at the rate of thirteen knots. Had it
not been for the superior strength of the hull of the Moravian, she would
have been broken by the shock and gone down with the 237 passengers she was
bringing home from Canada.

The accident happened about five o'clock in the morning, as the day
was breaking. The officers of the quarter-deck hurried to the after-part of
the vessel. They examined the sea with the most careful attention. They saw
nothing but a strong eddy about three cables' length distant, as if the
surface
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 10

had been violently agitated. The bearings of the place were taken exactly,
and the Moravian continued its route without apparent damage. Had it struck
on a submerged rock, or on an enormous wreck? They could not tell; but, on
examination of the ship's bottom when undergoing repairs, it was found that
part of her keel was broken.

This fact, so grave in itself, might perhaps have been forgotten like
many others if, three weeks after, it had not been re-enacted under similar
circumstances. But, thanks to the nationality of the victim of the shock,
thanks to the reputation of the company to which the vessel belonged, the
circumstance became extensively circulated.

The 13th of April, 1867, the sea being beautiful, the breeze
favourable, the Scotia, of the Cunard Company's line, found herself in 15°
12' long. and 45° 37' lat. She was going at the speed of thirteen knots and
a half.

At seventeen minutes past four in the afternoon, whilst the passengers
were assembled at lunch in the great saloon, a slight shock was felt on the
hull of the Scotia, on her quarter, a little aft of the port-paddle.

The Scotia had not struck, but she had been struck, and seemingly by
something rather sharp and penetrating than blunt. The shock had been so