Chapter 21
Some Days AshoreSTEPPING ASHORE had an exhilarating effect on me. Ned Land
tested the soil with his foot, as if he were laying claim to it.
Yet it had been only two months since we had become, as Captain
Nemo expressed it, "passengers on the Nautilus," in other words,
the literal prisoners of its commander.
In a few minutes we were a gunshot away from the coast. The soil
was almost entirely madreporic, but certain dry stream beds were
strewn with granite rubble, proving that this island was of
primordial origin. The entire horizon was hidden behind a curtain
of wonderful forests. Enormous trees, sometimes as high as 200
feet, were linked to each other by garlands of tropical creepers,
genuine natural hammocks that swayed in a mild breeze. There were
mimosas, banyan
